American Experience (1988–…): Season 24, Episode 1 - Billy the Kid - full transcript

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Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

On April 28th, 1881,

21-year-old Henry McCarty,
alias Billy the Kid,

was just days from being hanged
for murder.

A promised pardon
from the governor of New Mexico



never materialized, and Billy
was now in the custody

of Lincoln County Sheriff
Pat Garrett

and two well-armed deputies.

Thursday evening about 6:00,
there's two guards on duty.

Pat Garrett went over it
time and time again

to not be taken in
by this guy's charm.

"I don't care
how charming he is,

the first chance he gets, he'll
kill the both of you and leave."

Billy the Kid was extremely
intelligent.

He was able to get them

to underestimate him
time and again.

I think he thinks,

somewhere in here,
"I'm going to get out of this."

Escaping was always
on the agenda.



Billy the Kid had been
on the run from the law

since the age of 15.

In just a few short years,

he had become the most wanted
man west of the Pecos.

Demonized by a popular press
set on cleaning up New Mexico,

Billy was portrayed
as a blood-thirsty killer,

a "ruthless cuss"
hell-bent on anarchy.

They were beating the war drums.

"Let's get rid of that Kid.

"Let's hunt him down.

Let's civilize this territory."

Billy the Kid came of age

at the moment the myth
of the Wild West was forged.

At a time when outlaws
were made famous overnight

in the pages of dime novels,
he took his place alongside men

like Jessie James,
Butch Cassidy, and Wyatt Earp.

I grew up with Billy the Kid.

We grew up with the myths,
the stories.

People saw him as a voice
for the disenfranchised.

He was the Robin Hood
of New Mexico.

Billy the Kid was a rebel,

an outlaw, good-looking,
glamorous.

But you have to separate the
romantic, mythical side of Billy

and the fact that he was
a cop killer

and that he murdered people.

You could actually see
in this period in America

the formation of something which
becomes very, very powerful

in 20th century culture,
which is the gangster as hero.

The idea that the man of
violence is the man of action.

And that there is no difference
really between fame and infamy.

The young man who would come
to symbolize the freedom

and rebellion of the Wild West

likely began his life in the
teeming slums of New York City.

He was born Henry McCarty,
the son of Irish immigrants.

His mother, Catherine,
had fled Ireland

to escape the devastating
famine of the 1840s,

only to find squalor
and hardship in America.

It's not known who Henry's
father was or how he died,

but Catherine was determined
to give her son

a better life than the one
she had known.

Shortly after the Civil War,

Henry and his mother joined
a wave of humanity,

heading west in search
of new opportunity.

Out on the trail,
young Henry learned to survive

the hardscrabble life
of a Western pioneer.

Catherine made sure he learned
to read and write.

To pass the time,
the two sang Irish folk songs

as they crossed the vast
open spaces of America.

Lured by the promise of silver,

14-year-old Henry and his
mother, and her new husband,

a prospector named
William Antrim,

settled in the remote outpost
of Silver City

in southeastern New Mexico.

By 1873, New Mexico had been a
territory of the United States

for over two decades,

but to American settlers
fresh off the Santa Fe Trail,

the region seemed like
an exotic foreign country.

Americans, in their
journals and diaries,

you can sense the kind of, um...

they were very patronizing

and very dismissive
of this culture here.

The New Mexicans were dark,

their religious practices
were mysterious.

And civilization
as we customarily think of it

kind of halted here.

In the bustling plazas
of the capital,

traders could be heard
bartering for livestock

in Spanish, French, and Navajo.

Rustic dwellings carved
into the mesas

were home to Pueblo Indians.

And Mescalero Apaches continued
to roam the countryside.

New Mexico is a place
of mestizaje,

what we call
a mixture of cultures.

So you have the Latino Mexican
influence,

you have the Anglo influence,
you have the Native American.

It was a wild unbelievable land

of great violence
and great beauty.

Young Henry McCarty
was captivated

by the world he discovered,

instantly embracing
New Mexican culture.

He became a familiar presence

in the Hispanic district
of Silver City

known as Chihuahua Hill.

In just months, he was speaking
Spanish fluently.

He took to wearing sombreros
and beaded moccasins,

and he would while away
his nights

learning to dance
the Mexican fandango.

He would go to the Mexican
district of Silver City

with his mother, with Catherine,
and they'd go to the dances

and they'd dance together.

And they'd sing songs together.

And he certainly caught the eye
of many, many senoritas.

These Hispanic mothers
and these old aunts

and these fathers
liked him enough

to let him court around
and dance

with their lovely,
protected daughters.

He didn't have his arm out
like people might have.

He so embraced our culture,
our people.

He was somebody
that was very respectful,

very proper, and very formal
in a Mexican sort of way,

which we like our formality.

He had this...
this innate charm.

They often talk about sort of
his squirrelly teeth

and how his mouth was shaped,
but it was always in a smile,

that's what the Hispanic
community always says...

He was always smiling,
always laughing.

When Henry was just
15 years old,

his mother became gravely ill
with tuberculosis.

She had hoped the dry mountain
air that banked off the Rockies

and settled over the valleys
would restore her health,

but the galloping consumption,
as it was then known,

proved too much for Catherine.

She died in Silver City in 1874.

The Kid is a young teenager
when his mom dies.

Catherine is his one connection
to stability.

I mean, this is the mother
that's raised you,

that's made sure you were fed,
that sent you to school.

But once Catherine's gone,
the stepfather, William Antrim,

doesn't really care about
the upbringing of his stepson.

Antrim abandons the boy.

I mean, to be out
in this distant and strange land

and then to have lost
the only connection you had

to who you were and to your past
just has to be devastating.

An orphan in a tough
and transient mining town,

it didn't take long for Henry
to find trouble

or for trouble to find him.

In the saloons and brothels
in the center of town,

Henry hustled to make
a few bucks however he could.

At night he would bunk down
in the boarding houses

with a revolving cast
of strangers,

one of them a streetwise petty
thief named Sombrero Jack.

On the afternoon of September 4,
1875, Henry acted as lookout

while Sombrero Jack
robbed a Chinese laundry.

When some of the plunder,
including a loaded revolver,

was discovered in Henry's room,
he was arrested.

Alone in a cramped
four-by-five cell,

Henry could hear the bustle
of downtown Silver City

through the tiny barred window.

He knew it might take
up to three months

for a traveling judge to make it
to this part of New Mexico.

That was a lifetime
to a 16-year-old.

One of the things about the Kid:
he was able to deceive people.

He was able to get them to think
that he was inconsequential.

Henry conned the prison guard

into granting him some time
outside his cell.

When the coast was clear, Henry,

no more than 130 pounds
with his boots on,

forced his tiny frame
up the chimney.

The sheriff returns to the jail

and there's no Kid.

The cell is empty,
the hallway's empty.

Probably, it would have been
a slap on the wrist

had he stayed there.

But with that jail break, he's
a wanted man at the age of 16.

Henry decided to head west
for Arizona,

where he hoped to get
a fresh start.

With no horse, no gun,
and little money,

he was on the run

in some of the most hostile land
in the country.

This country was so bad,

so wild, so dangerous,
just staying alive was a trick.

This was a country where
everybody was against you

if you had anything worth taking
and you were alone.

This territory, this landscape,

embraces people who can stand up
to the environment,

to the harshness, to the desert.

And you had to be
a unique individual

to survive this kind
of landscape.

After 500 miles
of unforgiving desert,

Henry arrived in a remote
army outpost in Arizona

known as Camp Grant,

where he stopped running long
enough to look for honest work.

Like a lot of kids in his time,
he wanted to be a cowboy.

You know the whole myth and aura
that surrounded cowboys,

surrounded them then
just as it does now.

He wasn't very good at it
apparently,

because the best work he seemed
to be able to get

was working on the chuck line
as a cook.

They thought he was
too small and frail

to be working
with the other cowboys.

Once again, Henry was back
to hustling for money.

He became a skilled gambler
and dealer of three-card monte

and he fell in with a gang
of seasoned outlaws

who taught him the finer points
of stealing horses.

Soon, he earned enough to buy

the one thing he would need most
to survive: a six-shooter.

It's an equalizer.

If you want
some instant respect,

put on a six-shooter

and you're going
to get that respect.

He quickly became very good
with a gun.

He learned how to handle
himself, because you had to

in order to get along
out in that raw country.

In the year since escaping
the Silver City jail,

Henry had started to make a name
for himself as an outlaw.

He had taken to wearing
a gambler's ring on his pinky,

and bright colored scarves
around his neck.

He spent his nights hanging out

with other toughs
at raucous saloons

where he picked up the nickname
"The Kid."

On the evening
of August 17, 1877,

the Kid danced across a line
from which he could never return

when he ran into a local thug
named Frank Cahill.

Windy Cahill.

He's a real boastful,
outspoken bully.

He thought it was fun
to slap this little guy around,

just to amuse the other patrons.

And he did that
one time too many.

He started really in on the Kid,
and one thing led to another

and he got him down
and was pounding him.

And the Kid was working his hand
toward the gun in his belt.

And Cahill tried to stop him
but couldn't.

Belly shot is not a way to die.

It took Cahill all night to die.

But by that time,
the Kid had fled.

Murder is a hanging offense.

This is quite a bit different

than stealing something
from a laundry.

The Kid really has reasons
to be afraid of being caught,

and he's on the run,

even though if he had stayed,

there could have been an
argument made for self-defense.

But the Kid is not willing
to take that chance.

The Kid had killed a man.

He had undergone a quick
and fiery baptism

from orphan boy to desperado.

Now, he could only count on his
wits, his gun, and his horse.

I think it must have had

a profound psychological impact
upon Billy,

being still young, very
impressionable, very vulnerable.

You know, what does it mean
to kill a man?

I think it further settled Billy
into the role of an outlaw.

I mean, after that,
there was no turning back.

New Mexico is a great place
to be a fugitive.

The distances are so vast,

there are so many
places to hide.

It's a great playground,
basically, for a getaway artist,

especially if you're friendly
with the locals

and you speak their language

and you've endeared yourself
to them.

In 1877, riding
a stolen gray mare,

the Kid crossed the Arizona
border back into New Mexico.

He had changed his name

and was now going by the alias
William H. Bonney.

Quietly, he made his way
across the territory,

catching a meal where he could

and relying on the hospitality
of the Hispanic farmers

whose ranches had dotted
the countryside for generations.

But times were changing
in New Mexico.

At the end of the Civil War,

American businessmen
had flocked to the territory

looking to profit
off this vast new land.

The men of this new
Anglo establishment

quickly became the largest
property owners in New Mexico,

often wresting land
from Hispanic ranchers

with the aid of unscrupulous
bankers, a rigged legal system,

and when all else failed,
the business end of a gun.

It was incredible
what these people controlled.

And they got
into the railroading business,

into mining, into cattle.

Into all of it.

But land was at the very
cornerstone of their empire.

Some of the most lucrative
landholdings

were in Lincoln County, the
largest county in New Mexico.

For the past decade,
the whole county had been run

by tough Irish immigrants
Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan.

Their business was primarily

in cattle ranching
and government beef contracts,

but there was barely a dollar
spent for 30,000 square miles

that they didn't get a piece of.

Murphy and Dolan's enterprise
came to be known as "The House,"

named for their headquarters,

a giant timber-frame building
in the town of Lincoln.

The House owned everything
in the county

and they had pretty much
a stranglehold.

They had no real competition.

They simply ruled the place
like a fiefdom.

They were good to their friends,

but everyone else,
you better watch out.

You didn't want to get in their
way, that's for certain.

But someone was getting
in their way.

John Tunstall,
the 23-year-old son

of a wealthy British merchant,
had recently arrived in town

with grand plans to build
a cattle empire

and seemingly limitless funds
to match.

Though he was young and had
little experience in ranching,

Tunstall knew that competing
with the House could get rough.

Tunstall's looking
for good cowboys,

but cowboys that are not only
good with a rope,

but also really handy
with a pistol and a rifle.

The Kid arrived in Lincoln
in 1877 and was soon arrested.

He was jailed for stealing
horses from the Tunstall ranch.

But much to the Kid's surprise,

instead of pressing charges
against him,

Tunstall offered him a job.

Billy couldn't believe his luck.

When he got the chance
to go straight, he took it.

One of the things
that the Kid says later:

"Tunstall was the only man

that treated me
like I was decent and white."

He didn't treat him like some
riffraff or scum or horse thief.

He treated him
like a human being.

And for a teenager like the Kid,
that was a big, big deal.

The Kid joined a group
of young men

who, like himself,
were outsiders.

Young men who'd been drifting,

trying to scrape together
a living out on the plains.

Together they learned
how to be proper cowboys.

At night they told stories
and slept under the stars.

Tunstall provided money to keep
them in boots and bullets,

and most of all, he gave them
the promise of a future.

But to Murphy and Dolan,
the two Irish immigrants

who had enjoyed unfettered power
over the county for years,

the idea of a well-heeled
Englishman

moving in on their turf
was unthinkable.

The first thing
you have to remember

about both Murphy and Dolan

is that they've grown up
in rural Ireland.

They've experienced

what is proportionally
still in human history

the most deadly famine
that there's ever been.

And that sort of experience
doesn't make people nice.

It makes them
incredibly ruthless.

It gives them an extraordinary
other kind of hunger.

It's a hunger never to have this
happen to you again.

You think they're going
to sit still

and let this bloody
Englishman come in

and take it all off them?

"This is the very kind
of Englishman

"that's kept our people
under their heel

"and ground us into the dirt
and made us starve

"and now he thinks he's going
to come out here

"and take this off us, after
what we've had to do to get it?

You've got to be kidding me."

The House concocted a plan

to get rid of Tunstall
once and for all.

They enlisted
Sheriff William Brady

to enforce a phony court order

confiscating all of Tunstall's
horses and cattle.

On the afternoon
of February 18, 1878,

John Tunstall rode into town

to challenge the claim
on his property.

Along the way, he ran
into the sheriff's posse.

When they find Tunstall,

he, of course, rides forward
to talk to them.

Here's a man
who actually believes

that the law will protect him.

They never give him a chance.

They shoot him
out of the saddle.

That's the way the law works
in Lincoln County.

One of them dismounted,
walked over,

and put a bullet
in Tunstall's head.

And then,
just out of sheer meanness,

they shot Tunstall's horse.

They arranged the bodies

as though man and horse
were taking a nap together.

And they put Tunstall's hat
under the horse's head

and folded Tunstall's coat up
underneath his head

and they thought it was
a good joke.

Tunstall's gang of men
retrieved his dead body

and buried him at his ranch.

The Kid had learned a hard truth

about the way the world worked
in New Mexico.

To him, Murphy, Dolan,
the House,

and the whole system
was corrupt.

He made a pact with Dick Brewer,
Doc Scurlock,

and the other men
who had worked for Tunstall.

Together they would form
their own cowboy army.

Calling themselves
the Regulators,

they vowed to dispense
their own brand of justice.

Billy had one capacity above
others, and that was loyalty.

He was extremely loyal.

He was loyal to everyone

who would give him that chance
to be loyal.

And when Tunstall was killed,
he was hell-bent on revenge.

He's going to get every man

that's been involved
in this killing.

And he has a particular hit list
that he wants to take care of.

William Brady, the sheriff
of Lincoln County...

The man the Regulators believed
ordered Tunstall's murder...

Was number one on that list.

On April Fool's Day, 1878,

they got their chance
to even the score.

One day in Lincoln, the Kid
is there and several Regulators

and Sheriff Brady
is walking down the street

with several of his deputies.

I think they knew his patterns.

They knew he took
that morning stroll every day.

And behind an adobe wall,

the Kid and his fellow
Regulators are hiding.

The Kid and the Regulators

put over a dozen slugs
into Sheriff Brady.

He was dead
before he hit the ground.

It's an assassination,
there's no question about it.

And certainly, why would they
think Brady deserved any better,

after he had sent known killers
out to murder Tunstall?

Brady was a murderer,
even though he wore a badge.

They shoot him down like a dog,

because, you know,
this is a war.

The only way we're going to get
a decent law around here

is to kill the law we've got
and put our law in it.

What started off
as a revenge killing,

sparked by an old world rivalry
between the Irish and English,

quickly spiraled into anarchy.

The Regulators and the House
were engaged in gang warfare,

ambushing each other
on the countryside

and squaring off
in the center of town.

With each encounter,
the body count rose.

In just a few weeks of fighting,

the press began calling
the conflict

"The Lincoln County War."

The Lincoln County War was
the finality of a lot, a lot,

a lot of hostility that had
been bubbling for a decade,

when finally everybody took arms
and said, "Let's finish this."

"It was just an open
free-for-all,"

one former Regulator recalled.

"Everyone just had to line up
on one side or the other."

There's a lot of... a lot of
hard feelings going on here.

And this isn't unique,
of course,

to the Irish
and the Englishman Tunstall.

But there's a lot
of hard feelings

between the Mescaleros
and the Hispanics.

It doesn't take much
to get an argument going,

and that's why so many dead
bodies pile up so quickly.

Law completely broke down
in Lincoln County.

There was really no semblance
of law and order.

Every son of a bitch up there
wanted to kill somebody.

The Kid watched many
of his friends die

in the relentless violence.

Simply by staying alive,

he became one of the leaders
of the Regulators.

In the process,

he made a name for himself
as a fearsome fighter.

The remarkable thing
about the Kid:

he's the only one
of the soldiers

that was in every single
skirmish,

every fight, every face-off.

Every "No you don't,"
he was there.

And he just kept
getting better at it.

I think he just gets stuck
in the logic of this conflict

and I think he does
what young men of his age

have done throughout history,

which is he, he fights
for the dead,

he keeps going because his mates
have been killed.

It's very, very intense,

and it's an incredibly
intimate conflict.

I think there's a sense

that Billy sort of doesn't
have anywhere to go.

The people he's connected to who
might have been able to help him

and might have been able
to give him a job

or get him up the ladder
are being killed.

Blending into the darkness
of the New Mexico night,

the Kid could always find
comfort and refuge

with the Hispanic ranchers.

On the tiny sheep farms
that surrounded Lincoln,

he was becoming a heroic figure
in another struggle.

The Hispanos would have seen
in the Kid

a person who was fighting
their enemies.

The people he was
fighting against,

even the ones who were on the
side of the law, were crooks.

The Hispanos knew that.

These were not fine,
outstanding citizens

who were being gunned down.

He was engaging against people
who had stolen a whole country.

He was engaging against people
who had stolen their lands.

The Kid is a consistent rebel,

rebelling against the new
Anglo establishment.

They are co-opting
all the land grants.

They are making
themselves wealthy.

And so when he strikes
against the House,

he's always striking a blow

for those who are being
dispossessed,

the Mexican sheepherders.

So it's not a very long journey

to make him into this fighter
for justice.

The Hispanos gave him shelter
and hid him.

They were able to use the Kid

and construct a hero

at a time when heroes
were on short supply,

a time when they had no heroes.

Five months after
the Tunstall murder,

the violence of the Lincoln
County War reached its peak.

A bloody siege
in the center of Lincoln

known as the "big killing"
left five more men dead.

The Kid narrowly escaped
with his life.

To the anxious American
politicians and businessmen

in the Territory, the vigilante
violence was bad for business

and needed to be stopped.

Indictments were handed down
against the Kid

and three other Regulators for
the killing of Sheriff Brady.

Still, the bloodshed
continued unabated.

All this murder and mayhem

naturally made its way
back to Washington

and the federal government's
response was,

"Let's put an end to this."

President Rutherford B. Hayes
himself intervened,

appointing a new governor
to the New Mexico Territory,

former Union Army General
Lew Wallace.

Wallace traveled to the town
of Lincoln with a mandate

to restore order
as quickly as possible.

He came down here and began to
take testimony from everybody.

He was interested
in who killed who and when.

And he couldn't get anybody
to testify;

everybody was frightened.

Finally he found
a willing witness.

In Lew Wallace, the Kid saw an
opportunity to clear his name.

He wrote a letter to the
governor, offering to testify

against members of the House
in exchange for a full pardon.

He's trying not to be
on the run.

He's trying to go straight.

"Hey, let's quit this.

"Let me live a life.

"Damn it, I'm not 20 years
of age yet.

I don't want to be dead."

Wallace agreed to the deal.

And the Kid appeared
before a grand jury.

Due in part to his testimony,
more than 200 indictments,

many for murder,
were returned against 50 men,

including the House leader
Jimmy Dolan.

But when it came time
to grant the Kid his pardon,

Wallace was nowhere to be found.

He had returned to the
governor's mansion in Santa Fe,

leaving the Kid's fate

in the hands of the authorities
in Lincoln.

Basically I don't think
Lew Wallace gave a damn

about Billy the Kid.

He just wanted to get out of
here and get out of here he did.

With the Governor gone,
the local district attorney,

who was a close associate
of Murphy and Dolan's,

dropped most of the charges
against members of the House.

But indictments against the Kid
and the Regulators remained.

Before Billy could be taken
back into custody,

he slipped out of town.

There was a last gathering
of the gang, the Regulators,

where they all decided to get
the heck out of New Mexico.

They said,
"We're going to Colorado

"and we're going to Kansas
and we're going to Texas,

the hell with this."

And Billy said,

"Well, boys, I'm going to stay
here and steal myself a living."

The Kid went back to stealing
horses and rustling cattle,

quickly becoming a nuisance

to the wealthy Anglo ranchers
in the territory.

The Kid is a consistent rebel
all the way.

He didn't back down
from the House.

He's not going to back away now.

He is now a real thorn in the
power structure in New Mexico.

And so they're determined
to get him.

Over the next few months,

newspapers were filled
with accounts about the Kid,

mostly embellished.

He was portrayed
as a murderous villain

terrorizing the countryside,

a desperate cuss hell-bent
on anarchy,

in charge of a ruthless gang
of criminals.

There was scarcely
a violent crime committed

in the whole of New Mexico
that wasn't blamed on the Kid.

The large majority
of the territorial press

were mouthpieces for the House,

for the big bosses
up in Santa Fe.

They were beating the war drums.

"Let's civilize this territory.

"Let's get rid of that Kid.

Let's get rid of Billy the Kid."

In 1880, an enterprising
newspaper editor

named J.H. Koogler gave the Kid
his most famous alias.

Soon, a notice appeared in town
squares across the territory:

"Wanted Dead or Alive:
Billy the Kid."

In the spring of 1880,

a traveling photographer arrived
in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

Dusty and bedraggled,

the Kid decided to pose
for a 25 cent tintype.

For the past several months,

Billy had counted
on his close relationship

with the Hispanic ranchers
in Fort Sumner

to help him to elude capture.

It was rumored that he had
fallen in love

with a 16-year-old Hispanic girl
named Paulita Maxwell.

Years later, Paulita would say

the photo taken that day
didn't do him justice.

Paulita would have seen

a slim, attractive young man,

dancing eyes, mischievous eyes.

Yes, he was scarred,
yes, he was battered,

but he was a man
who still had his dreams.

So she would have seen that
great yearning in his spirit.

Billy was always looking
for a family.

He wanted a home
and that's the one thing

that he never really had
and couldn't get.

But I think he felt
that Fort Sumner was home.

A hundred miles away, the town
of Lincoln had a new sheriff

determined to make a name
for himself.

Pat Garrett, he's a man
on the make.

He's a man who wants
respectability.

He wanted to be a famous lawman
like Wild Bill Hickok.

And in capturing the Kid,
he could do so.

By December of 1880, Garrett
had assembled a gang of lawmen.

Dubbed the Panhandle Posse,

it included some of the toughest
cowboys from Texas.

The newspapers would follow
their every move,

providing details
to a public now eager

to see Billy the Kid
brought to justice.

It's no simple feat.

This is winter,
this is November, December,

when he's out there
on the trail.

Finally, through a combination
of stealth and some sleuthing,

he tracks him down.

Garrett and his posse

killed two of Billy's friends,
Tom Folliard and Charlie Bowdre,

and in just a matter of days

they had backed the Kid
into a corner in a tiny cabin

in a desolate area
known as Stinking Spring.

The Kid and the others were
trapped inside the place.

There was nowhere
for them to go.

Garrett shot one of their horses
right in the doorway.

After a night with no food,
no water, and no fire,

the Kid finally ran out
of options.

He walked out, threw his hands
in the air, and surrendered.

When he came out he said,

"Hell, Pat, I thought you had
200 Texans out here!

Otherwise I'd have
never have given up."

He's actually going to jail and
he's probably going to be hanged

and yet he's laughing about it

because in here, I think
he thinks, somewhere in here,

"I'm going to get out of this."

News of the Kid's capture
spread across the territory.

When Garrett arrived
in Las Vegas, New Mexico,

with the kid in irons,

the sheriff was greeted
as a conquering hero.

Crowds lined the street
to see the famous man-hunter

and to gawk
at the mythic outlaw.

The newspaper reporters
are allowed in

and they get to talk to the Kid.

And as he's talking to the
reporters, the Kid says,

"You know, this is good,

"maybe people will think
I'm half human now,

"because they haven't thought
I was human before.

"They consider me an animal.

Maybe now they'll think
I'm half human."

"He did look human indeed,"
one reporter wrote.

"There was nothing very mannish
about him in his appearance,

"for he looked and acted
like a school boy

"with the traditional silky fuzz
on his upper lip

and clear blue eyes
with a roguish snap about them."

Billy was loaded onto a train
bound for Santa Fe,

where he would await his trial
for murder.

As he pulled away
from the station,

the defiant Kid smiled
and laughed,

inviting reporters to come
visit him in jail.

The train, of course,
is the machine in the garden,

the change that's going to come
to the entire West.

And so now he is, of course,
placed on this machine.

And now it's going to take him
to Santa Fe

and there, of course,

they'll chain him and they'll
prepare him for execution.

Once he's on that train,
it's a one-way trip.

Billy was convicted
of first-degree murder

for the killing
of Sheriff Brady.

He was sent back to Lincoln
in the custody of Pat Garrett

and two well-armed deputies,
J.W. Bell and Bob Ollinger.

At only 21 years of age,
he was a dead man walking,

scheduled to hang
in just a matter of days.

He believed that he was going
to get away.

All he had to do was recognize
the opportunity.

It was a matter
of time, and he...

and he picked his time well.

On the afternoon
of April 28, 1881,

Garrett was out of town
on county business

and Bob Ollinger was across
the street eating dinner.

The Kid said, "I need to go
use the outhouse."

Bell takes the Kid out to the
outhouse, they come back in,

and at the top of the stairs
he surprises Bell,

Billy gets Bell's gun...

and Bell panics and he starts
running down the stairs...

and he does inflict
one mortal wound.

Billy grabs Bob Ollinger's
shotgun

and he runs
to one of the windows

where he could see out
across the street,

because he expected
that Ollinger

probably heard the gunfire.

And Ollinger...

I've always imagined him picking
up his head and saying,

"Did you hear, did you hear
that, did you hear something?

It's a shot."

So he...

I don't know what was
going on in his mind

but he must have known something
like fear, real fear.

And Ollinger came running across
from the Wortley

and someone yelled out,
"The Kid's killed Bell!"

And just as soon as Goss
spoke those words,

Ollinger hears the voice
from above in the window.

"Hello, Bob."

And Ollinger looked up into the
twin barrels of his own shotgun.

He's hit by .36 buckshot,

which is about
a quarter pound of lead.

He's dead when he hits
the ground.

It is so unexpected.

He's got no chances
of getting out of this,

and suddenly, whip, whap, bang,

they're dead, and dead very...
How shall I say... spectacularly.

And he then comes out,
commandeers a horse,

and rides out of town singing.

He was very good
at getting away, escaping.

Escape was one of his great
talents.

In that moment when he leaves
the courthouse on horseback,

as he goes out of sight,

he passes into legend
at that moment.

The story will never be
the same after that.

The story would take
less than a day

to make front-page headlines
across the country.

The telegraph gave electric life

to the details
of Billy's escape.

He became nationally famous
because instantaneously,

people would know about Billy
and what he did,

and he was glamorized.

And he was made
into a mythical character.

The New York Times, he
was even in the London Times,

big towns, small towns,

you know, Fredericksburg,
Illinois, wherever.

Name any town you like.

Chicago, sure, San Francisco,
certainly.

So he became an absolute icon
of American outlawry.

Just a few years earlier,

he had been a skinny orphan boy
from New York City.

Now, Billy was the most feared
man in New Mexico.

He knew it wouldn't be long

before someone
came looking for him,

but he still refused
to leave the territory.

He was urged to by friends

to, you know, don't let the sun
set on you in New Mexico.

But he made no attempt to get
away, and he could have.

Most of us know exactly
why he did that.

Two words: Paulita Maxwell.

His true love.

He wasn't going to go down
to Mexico.

That would have been
the smart thing to do.

But, you know, sometimes a kid
isn't always smart.

Sometimes the heart rules,

and I think it certainly did
in that case.

It had been nearly three months

since Billy escaped
from Lincoln.

Some began to wonder

if Pat Garrett was too afraid
to go after him again.

But Garrett was biding his time

and he knew exactly
where Billy was.

You know, Pat Garrett kept
getting these persistent tips

from Fort Sumner
that the Kid was up there.

Turned out the tips
were coming from Pete Maxwell,

Paulita's big brother,

who did not approve
of their relationship.

And finally Garrett decided
that he had to act on it.

Garrett and two new deputies

headed up north
along the Pecos River.

They arrived in Fort Sumner
the night of July 14, 1881,

and went directly
to the Maxwell home.

Garrett posted his two men
on the front porch.

So as not to be noticed,
he snuck in through the back

and found his way
to Pete Maxwell's bedroom.

At that same moment,

Billy, in his stocking feet,
approached the porch

where Garrett's men
were stationed.

Billy came into Maxwell's house
in the dead of night,

presumably to cut a piece
of meat from a beef

that was hanging on the porch.

He came up, he saw those two
silhouettes there hunkered down,

and he asked them in Spanish,
"Quién es?"

"Quién es?"

Who is it?

There was no answer.

Well, the Kid backs away from
them and backs away from them

and finally backs
into the doorway.

And from inside the room,
he's framed in the light.

The moonlight.

And Garrett is sitting
on the bed with Pete Maxwell.

Maxwell leaned over
and said, "El es."

It's him.

It's him.

And Garrett took his gun
and blasted.

And there fell dead
Billy the Kid.

Right on that floor with that
question on his lips,

"Quién es?"

Never knowing who killed him.

The folks in the local community

are horrified
by what's happened.

The local senoritas and Paulita
Maxwell gather up Billy's body.

They anoint him and lay him out

and sort of pray over him
that night.

They loved the Kid.

New Mexicans felt
that he was one of us.

Lo nuestro, one of ours.

News of his killing spread fast.

Everyone from preachers
in pulpits

to kids in the schoolyards
retold the story

of how legendary outlaw Billy
the Kid was gunned down.

My maternal grandmother,

she would tell me of that day

when her brothers ran into the
house in Kansas City, Missouri

and said, "Two days ago,
out in New Mexico territory,

they killed Billy the Kid!"

She remembered that day
as clear as a bell

when she was an old, old woman,

and I think a lot of people did.

For killing Billy the Kid,

Pat Garrett would enjoy
momentary fame

as America's greatest lawman.

But in 1908,
mired in gambling debts,

he was mysteriously shot dead
along a remote stretch of road

in the New Mexican desert.

For the big businessmen
in Santa Fe,

economic progress was slow
to come to the territory,

and they would have to wait
another 30 years for statehood.

The House and its beef empire
would go bankrupt

and the names Lawrence Murphy
and James Dolan

would fade from memory.

Only the legend
of Billy the Kid would endure.

That was Henry McCarty
that died,

that was Billy Bonney that died.

Billy the Kid rode on,
and he rides on forever.

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Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.