Were Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid friends?
And why does it matter?
Recently a friend of The Wild West Extravaganza – the artist, and all-around Western film and history aficionado, David Lambert – stated that he believes historians have overcorrected in their attempts to combat bad history, specifically in regard to the relationship between Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
While I’m not a historian, I am somewhat guilty of this. Let me explain.
I’ve stated in the past, very confidently, that Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid were not friends, at least not really. The “not really” part is an important caveat.
FYI: This is not meant to discredit or refute anything David wrote, just to add to it and share my own thoughts without hijacking his thread. David is extremely knowledgeable about Old West history, and not only should you follow him on Twitter, but you should buy his art, join his Patreon, and contribute to his Buymeacoffee.
Also, as you may know, I’m currently balls-deep in Pat Garrett research so all of this is still very fresh on my mind.
Here’s what we know
Pat Garrett lived and worked at Fort Sumner from February of 1878 until the summer of 1880. He was married to two local women (one died very shortly after the ceremony), worked briefly for Pete Maxwell, and was partners with Beaver Smith in a Fort Sumner saloon.
We also know that Garrett loved to gamble, a vice that would plague him for his entire life. This is something I’ll be expanding on more in the upcoming series, but suffice to say the man loved to place bets and he wasn’t too picky about his company when doing so.
From the time Pat arrived at Fort Sumner, all the way until the late summer of 1878, Billy Bonney was pretty busy over 150 miles away in Lincoln County attempting to avenge the death of his former employer, John Tunstall. However, after the battle of Lincoln, what was left of the Regulators did spend quite a bit of time at Fort Sumner, at least they did when they weren’t traveling to Texas and back with stolen livestock and raising hell all over the Territory.
San Patricio, Las Vegas, Roswell, Tascosa, Lincoln, and White Oaks were all frequent haunts of theirs, but it does seem that Billy had a special place in his heart for Fort Sumner. When he was there, which was often, he would frequent both Hargrove’s saloon and Beaver’s cantina, where Garrett worked.
Even after The Kid escaped a hangman’s noose and was being hunted by dang near everyone, he would often lay low on various ranches and sheep camps near the old fort.
Billy and Pat Garrett absolutely knew each other, and they were friendly with each other. But were they true friends? Here’s where I begin to sound like a politician. It all depends on what your definition of “friend” is.
As David pointed out in his excellent thread, Paulita Maxwell stated that Billy and Pat were tight, as “close a friend as Billy had in Fort Sumner”. She claimed that if Pat was low on cash he borrowed from Billy, and if Billy went broke he borrowed from Pat. The pair were known as “the long and the short of it”, they were “thick as two peas in a pod”, played cards together, would go to dances together, and even engage in friendly shooting competitions. What’s more, according to Paco Anaya, Billy was even present (along with several members of his gang) at Pat Garrett’s first wedding.
Speaking of weddings, Billy was close friends with the family of Pat’s second wife, Apolinaria Gutierrez. Rumor has it that The Kid was sparking Apolinaria’s sister (among many other girls).
Returning to Paulita Maxwell, she also was recorded as saying that when Pat accepted the position of Sheriff it came as “such a shock of surprise”. In Paulita’s opinion, what Pat did was an act of betrayal and something that, while not against the law, was against the unwritten code of the frontier: A man should not turn against his friends.
By the way, you can read this all for yourself in The Saga of Billy the Kid if you’re interested.
Of course, Paulita is just one person and, according to the man who interviewed her – Walter Noble Burns – she “is not a great admirer of Pat Garrett and, as Pat Garrett killed Billy the Kid, perhaps this is not to be wondered at.”
Also worth noting is that Paulita steadfastly denied ever being romantically involved with The Kid, despite a plethora of sources proving otherwise. This is generally considered to be an understandable fib on her part as she was a grandmother at the time of these interviews and likely didn’t want her kids and grandkids to know she was once the lover of a notorious criminal.
Do I believe Paulita was lying about her lack of romantic involvement with Billy the Kid?
Yes, I do.
Do I think this means that all of her statements about Garrett and Billy’s relationship are wrong?
No, I don’t.
I also don’t think every word and every letter should be taken as gospel, either. And that includes the first-hand accounts of not only Paulita but Pat Garrett, Sallie Chisum, John W. Poe, George Coe, etc.
They all have extremely valuable insights into Billy the Kid’s life story. They are also susceptible to the infallibility of human memories, ego, sentiments, and personal bias. It is very hard to determine where the truth lies, even with someone as well-documented and studied as William H. Bonney.
Also, Pat Garrett biographer Leon Metz justifiably calls out The Saga of Billy the Kid for being one-sided, writing “perhaps more than any single person, other than the Kid himself, Burns, in his romanticized Saga, flagrant with error, distortion, and misinterpretation, became Garrett’s nemesis. This vastly popular book served to haunt and cast dishonor upon the lawman long after his mutilated corpse was laid to rest in the Las Cruces cemetery.”
Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked, but the point so far is yes, Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett did know each other; they were at very least on friendly terms, and according to at least a few people who knew them, they were very good friends.
So why do historians downplay this or just outright deny it? And what are they basing their assertions on?
As I said earlier, I’m no historian. That said, speaking for myself I can think of a few reasons why I’ve personally found myself downplaying this relationship.
The first being noted fraud and liar, Olive P. Roberts aka Brushy Bill.
If you’re not familiar, Brushy made waves in the late 1940s when he claimed to be Billy the Kid. Turns out he wasn’t and, as crazy as his claims were, there are still many people who 100% believe that Brushy and Billy the Kid were one and the same. They are a very vocal bunch and some of them use the supposed friendship between Pat and Billy as a way of proving Brushy’s fantastical stories.
After all, Garrett and the Kid were really good friends, right? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t go around killing my friends. This is highlighted in the movie Young Guns 2 when Garrett shoots at – and purposely misses – Billy, letting him escape and live a very long life. For many who haven’t closely studied the historical context, it simply doesn’t make sense that a man would gun down his best friend. Therefore the only logical conclusion is that Pat Garrett didn’t really kill Billy, hence Brushy Bill Roberts was indeed Billy the Kid.
This leap of so-called logic can be extremely annoying, especially considering how silly Brushy Bill’s story is. If you’d like to learn more about this ridiculousness check out the episode I did on Roberts a while back. Also, don’t get me started on that fraud of a museum in Hico, Tx.
I don’t see how it’s possible for someone, after reviewing the overwhelming historical evidence, to believe that Pat Garrett did not kill Billy the Kid at Fort Sumner in 1881. Of course, most people aren’t nerds about this shit like I am, so they don’t look at all of the evidence and instead just repeat stuff they read online. Don’t believe me? Look up the phrase “huckle bearer”.
This translates to losers like myself having to answer the same questions over and over again via email and YouTube comments. Thanks a lot, John Fusco! Jk, I truly love Young Guns 1 and 2, even if I don’t believe in Brushy!
The Vilification of Pat Garrett
Secondly, the friendship between Billy and Pat is used to smear Garrett’s name. Have you ever read Dante’s Inferno? Me neither but I did listen to a podcast about it once. Apparently, in Dante’s world, the ultimate sin is betrayal, and the worst level of hell is reserved for those guilty of committing said betrayal. This kinda makes sense, right? To betray someone you first have to earn their trust. To then turn and break that trust is no small matter.
The fact that Pat Garrett and Billy the kid were so close, only for Pat to turn on him, just goes to show you what a sorry piece of shit Garrett was. This has led to Pat becoming what I consider one of the most falsely maligned figures of the Old West, while Billy the Kid remains one of the most beloved.
The common narrative is that Billy was an orphan and an otherwise happy-go-lucky kid who just got dealt the wrong hand, therefore the man who killed him must be the worst of the worst, an irredeemable soul guilty of the worst crimes imaginable.
Why do I care what people think about Pat Garrett? I guess I don’t care so much about Pat’s feelings as I do about trying to be as accurate as possible – something I often fail at but hey, I’m trying! There are a ton of myths concerning the Wild West. Many of these myths come straight from movies and works of fiction. And it just so happens that one such myth that the movies have overemphasized is the idea that Pat Garrett was evil and that Billy the Kid was an angel. Indeed, they were both fully human and fully flawed men, as tends to be the case with most people.
Speaking of Accuracy
The idea that Pat and The Kid were very good friends gives a false impression that they rode together. You’d be surprised at how many people I’ve spoken with who were astonished to learn that this was not the case.
Pat Garrett was never involved in the Lincoln County War.
Like, not at all.
And there is no documentable evidence that shows that Garrett and the Kid ever committed crimes together. While I don’t doubt that Pat may have stolen a cow or two, he was not a member of Billy’s inner circle of stock thieves, nor was Pat Garrett a Lincoln County Regulator. Matter of fact, he had friends that were on the opposing side of the Lincoln County War. The friendship between Garrett and Billy, as often portrayed on film, gives people the idea that the pair were outlaw buddies whose relationship was forged in blood and hardship, thus further deepening the level of betrayal. In truth, there’s no evidence of that at all.
So if Billy and Pat never rode the hoot owl trail together and if they never fought at each other’s side during the Lincoln County War, were they really friends?
Probably.
If the two were alive today their relationship status on Facebook would be set to “it’s complicated.”
As the evidence suggests, I’m sure Pat and Billy got along just fine when they were together at Fort Sumner. I’m sure they played poker and shot at targets and attended dances together. I’m sure they greeted each other fondly when they saw each other and shook hands and gave each other friendly smiles.
But I’m not sure there’s enough proof that their relationship went any deeper than that.
According to Pat Garrett himself, when speaking of Billy, “he minds his business and I attend to mine. He visits my wife’s folks sometimes, but he never comes around me. I just simply don’t want anything to do with him, and he knows it, and he knows that he has nothing to fear from me as long as he does not interfere with me and my affairs.”
I tend to agree with David’s inner strawman. Billy and Pat were friends and they did gamble together and hung out and generally had a good ole time while in each other’s presence. But, in my opinion, they were not the best of friends or BFFs and their friendship seems to have existed completely within the confines of Fort Sumner.
And I think that one of the main reasons that this relationship has been downplayed by historians is solely due to it being so overplayed by everyone else.
That said, from now on I plan on being more clear about this and similar issues. As I stated earlier, I do try to stay as close to the truth as possible on The Wild West Extravaganza, even when the truth is in direct contradiction with my own bias. Is my bias causing me to doubt the friendship of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, even now? Maybe. This is something I’m certainly reflecting on. Nothing wrong with a little self-awareness, right?
And like the aforementioned David Lambert wrote “I also don't think it's a good idea for historians to agree to terms set by conspiracy nuts. Pat & Billy being friends has nothing to do with Brushy Bill Roberts. Ignoring firsthand accounts that are widely available only makes the conspiracy nuts think you have something to hide.”
As for me, I won’t be so dismissive of this idea in the future, nor will I give broad sweeping statements that “Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett were not friends”. Even if I add the disclaimer “not really”, it’s still not doing justice to the truth or the pursuit of truth.
In my recent series on Billy the Kid, I theorized that people aren’t so much in love with Billy as they are in love with Emilio Estevez’s portrayal of the Kid. Or insert whoever your generation’s Billy the Kid was. Or, in plainer terms, people are in love with the idea and the legend of Billy the Kid more than anything.
We never got to see Billy the Man, encumbered by the stress of family obligations, or hindered by old age. In a sense, I think the Kid sorta represents an Old West Never-Never Land. A carefree frontier oasis where the horses are fast, the senoritas are lively, the music never stops, and where friendship – your pals – means everything.
That’s the legend of Billy the Kid and I don’t think any of us wants to see that legend die at Fort Sumner in the middle of the night at the hands of Pat Garrett. Therefore many of those who do accept the fact that Pat did indeed kill Billy still aren’t willing to part with the idea that maybe they weren't the bestest of buddies.
And maybe I'm having a difficult time parting with the idea that maybe they were.
Thanks for reading! If you haven’t already listened to the latest from The Wild West Extravaganza, please check it out and let me know what you think. I decided to go straight to the source and read a couple of chapters from William T. Hamilton’s My Sixty Years On The Plains. So far I’ve gotten pretty good feedback so you can expect more of Hamilton’s story in the near future. Also, the Pat Garrett series will begin soon, likely on July 12th.
Have a happy 4th of July!
What a good read. My views are online with you josh. They new each other had time for each other but pat loved the dollar more
Were seems to be the operative word.