BILLY THE KID— STILL RULES!
By Ric Polansky ©
There is an entire saddlebag full of anomalies and falsehoods concerning historical truths and popular myths of America’s “wild west”. In short, of all the famed names, Wyatt Earp, doc Holiday, the Dalton Gang, Butch Cassidy, Sundance kid, Geronimo, Pancho Villa were all from America’s southwest and definitely not the west.
That’s an important fact to understand, because when you talk about “old west images” those memorable words like El Paso, the old Santa Fe trail, Cimarron, west of the Pecos, Apache’s, Comanches, Arapaho or Navaho you need to only study maps of New Mexico, Arizona and a touch of the very west of Texas. That’s where all the action took place; and the places of those actions still exist.
Now, of all the character’s that ever came out of the “old West”, the real west, the southwest-- only the most notorious and shocking are best remembered. And of all the bad boys, rascals, psychopaths, desert rats, men evil and mean dog kickers none was more renown than one Robert Antrim, aka William Bonney known in the last years of his life as the “Kid”; young Billy still remains the most villainous.
Born in the bowels of an over immigrated New York City his mother packed shortly there after and took a prairie schooner (covered wagon) across the country to the plains of Kansas. After few years there she uprooted again down to Arizona.
Young William got into a scrape with a neighborhood bully and blew him away. Billy was not yet in his teens. He never faced trial, young William Antrim rode across the border to territorial New Mexico and changed his name to William Bonney. He ran with the loudest and brashest. He stole cattle, got into gun fights and seemingly was invincible. Bonney spoke perfect Spanish although there are doubts whether he could read or write. The land was untamed and lawless. Giant cartels were set up bringing in poor bands of Mexican’s or native American Indians to work the irrigated fields. Water rights were important to a desolate area. When John Chisum proved that cattle could be rounded up and herded directly to feed newly developing towns and forts cattle became king. Billy was in the thick of it all selling out his gun to the highest bidder.
On various occasions he was arrested only to escape usually leaving a trail of bodies to be buried behind him.
Times changed. Statehood happened and the governor of New Mexico got busy in his governor’s palace, (erected in 1610, still visible and the oldest government building in the United States). Governor Wallace was writing a book called Ben Hur which later became a best seller and long after his death a Hollywood blockbuster. He refused to reprieve Billy.
If Billy had one lick of common sense he would have ridden for the nearby border but instead he went north and carried on his wicked ways right under the flag of the United States—living within the walled frontier stronghold of Fort Sumner.
The story of his death varies, but in fact we have but one version and that was from the man that shot him, Pat Garrett a former friend. Garrett had hoped for fame and glory and wrote an immediate non best seller. The story he told was short, he heard Bill was hiding at the fort. He found an Indian girl that knew which room the kid was residing. Garrett promptly went there. He went in and found himself alone. Soon there after Billy returned and uttered his famous last words “quien es?” (who is there?) -- shots were fired- the rest is history.
Obviously from the above details released by the only survivor, sheriff Pat Garrett, he was loaded and ready to shoot. In the darkened atmosphere he only needed recognition, the voice was good enough. It wasn’t an arrest or a challenge and draw but rather a pure ambush and sure killing.
Billy’s grave stone has been stolen more times than the good guys have ridden into the setting sun. The most perfect obsequy of the old west imaginable. Yet people come from far and wide to view the place where he resides for eternity. Billy the Kid killed on July 14th, 1881, just twenty one years of age.
As we all well know, no famous personage dies easily. Legends never are buried in peace. One man surfaced some twenty years later claiming he was the kid. A few survivors of the kids old outlaw band said he was the “true Billy the kid”. Others claim the kid went to England to pass the rest of his life having been befriended by one John Turnstyle from Yorkshire. In the old wild southwest, true legends, good or bad are never allowed to R.I.P. unless you visit Tombstone, just down the road a fair ride. There carved over one of the stones is the emphatic obituary: “Here lies Lester Moore, four shots from a 44—no less no more”.
