Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as I Knew Them by John P. Wilson

Author:John P. Wilson [Wilson, John P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780826333261
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2017-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fig. 12. Dowlin’s Mill in 1888, now surrounded by Ruidoso, N.Mex. Sierra Blanca in the background. Courtesy of The Historical Society for Southeast New Mexico Inc., Roswell, N.Mex., photo no. 1300.

Nesmith, being a kind and generous man, offered to take the men in and let them ride as far as he went. Along toward evening the travelers came to the Chalk Hills vicinity some 15 miles to the south of where they had eaten at noon. Nesmith told Maximo Apodaca, who was driving for him, to turn off a little ways and they would find his old camping ground. As the wagon turned off the road, the other Mexican, Ruperto Lara, who was walking behind the wagon, raised his pistol and shot Nesmith in the back of the head, and instantly turned the weapon on Mrs. Nesmith and also shot her in the head.

The two Mexicans drove the team some distance off the road but parallel, some two and a half miles, when Lara told Apodaca that he had to kill the baby as he, Lara, had killed the parents. Apodaca thereupon grabbed the little child by the feet and slapped its head against the wagon tire. Then they got on the two ponies that had been pulling the wagon and rode into Old Mexico with the $25 they had taken from the pockets of George Nesmith. Doubtless the fiends believed that they had been so cunning in their crime that they would never be found out by mortal man. Only accidentally were they eventually brought to the bar of justice.

I was over in the Pecos Valley selling flour from the Blazer Mill at the time of the murders. I got back Sept. 26th, more than a month after the crime. I recall quite distinctly: I was farming below the Blazer Mill near Mescalero. Dr. Blazer came by on his way home from Tularosa, where he had learned what details were known of the Nesmith murder and how the bodies had been found.

The Doctor related that an old miner was on his way from the Jarillas to the San Andres. He noticed a wagon sitting quite a distance off the road, which was quite an unusual thing in those days. The miner was nearly famished for water and went to the wagon in the hope that he might find a keg or jug of water. Instead he was horrified to find three dead bodies; a man, woman, and little child.

He made his way to the San Augustine ranch this side of the Organ Mountains as speedily as he could and reached there late at night with his tired burros. He told the owner of the ranch, Mr. Benj. E. Davies, of the murdered family. The next morning, the two men returned to the wagon. There was a trunk in the wagon and in it were found papers that disclosed the identity of the three people. They also found the tracks of the horses, which evidently took the direction of El Paso.

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