Free The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws by Charles River Editors Page B

Dolan and his group’s attempt to paint him as one of the large instigators of the Lincoln County war eventually had the side-effect of making him a legendary frontier outlaw, as the Kid would be credited for much of the war’s violence, even though he personally perpetrated little of it.   

    The Kid ran away before he could be taken into custody, but once again, rather than disappearing into Mexico, he went to Las Vegas, New Mexico to earn some money at the gaming tables. In early 1880, Billy the Kid would have one of the most famous run-ins of his life. That January, the Kid was at a saloon in Fort Sumner when a Texan named Joe Grant loudly bragged he would kill Billy the Kid if he ever encountered him. According to legend, the Kid asked to see Grant’s gun, and rotated the gun’s cylinders so that the hammer would fall on an empty chamber the first time Grant pulled the trigger. After telling Grant he was the Kid, the drunken Grant fired his revolver, only to have the hammer fall on an empty chamber. The Kid then responded with a shot to the chin, instantly killing him. The Kid would later famously claim of the Grant shooting, “It was a game for two, and I got there first.”

    Other variations of the Grant story have popped up, but all of them involve the Kid making sure the next shot was an empty chamber. In one telling of the story, the Kid’s back was turned, and when he heard the click of the dry fire of the gun, he whirled around and shot the man.

    It was also at some point during this time that he posed for a ferrotype photo in Fort Sumner, the only authenticated photo of him that exists.

    In November 1880, the handsome and tall Pat Garrett was elected sheriff of Lincoln County. Later that month, Garrett tracked the Kid down at the Greathouse-Kuch ranch and when Jim Carlyle, a blacksmith who was a member of Garrett’s posse, was killed, the Kid was implicated again, although he denied it. The negative publicity against the Kid grew and, for the first time, he was referred to in print at “Billy the Kid,” which only added to his notorious outlaw image. The Kid again reached out to Governor Wallace to insist that the way he was being portrayed was inaccurate, but Wallace not only ignored him, he issued a bounty on his head: $500 for the capture of Billy the Kid.

    Pat Garrett

    Promising a $500 reward stepped up the manhunt and newspapers gave accounts of every movement of Garrett’s Panhandle Posse. Garrett caught up with the Kid again on December 19, 1880, ambushing his group in Fort Sumner. O’Folliard was killed in the ambush, but the Kid, now devastated at the loss of his friend, made it to a one-room stone house at Stinking Springs with four other men. On December 23, Garrett, acting on a tip, surrounded the house and unleashed a hail of gunfire, thinking he had just seen the Kid come out. The person he actually saw and killed was Charlie Bowdre, who had come outside to feed his horse. Garrett then shot the horse so that its body would block the doorway and serve as a barricade.

    Garrett and his group now waited out Billy the Kid and the remaining outlaws inside, and though legends that Garrett and the Kid were friends are inaccurate, the two engaged in a playful banter during the siege. Once Garrett’s group started cooking food, Garrett invited the Kid to come out to eat, while the Kid replied by inviting Garrett to “go to hell”. Finally, out of food and options, the outlaws surrendered and were allowed to eat along with Garrett’s group. Upon surrendering, the Kid allegedly said to Garrett, “’Pat, you son-of-a-bitch, they told me there was a hundred Texans here from the Canadian River! If I’d a-known there wasn’t no more than this, you’d never have got me!’’

    Garrett took the Kid into custody to much fanfare in New Mexico, making himself a hero. Reporters swarmed the Kid and were surprised to see that he did not act like the cold-blooded killer that they expected. The