The Tragic Days of Billy the Kid by Frazier Hunt

Author:Frazier Hunt [Hunt, Frazier]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Criminals & Outlaws, Personal Memoirs, History, United States, General
ISBN: 9780865347175
Google: A1Lw1k5WRA0C
Publisher: Sunstone Press
Published: 2009-01-15T05:34:02+00:00

PART THREE

The Outlaw

14

While Billy was playing hide-and-go-seek with the Fort Stanton soldiers, the Governor saw the need of a well armed and well mounted body of local men who would swiftly carry out his bidding. Don Juan Patron, the energetic twenty-five-year-old Speaker of the Assembly at Santa Fe, agreed to become the captain of a detachment to be called The Lincoln County Mounted Rifles.

Some thirty volunteers were enrolled in the militia company, and the Governor personally took time out to drill them. They were primarily native New Mexicans and were the victims of considerable amusing comment. Opposition papers over in Las Cruces and in Santa Fe referred to them as “the Governor’s heel flies.” Nevertheless, they did serve a very useful purpose.

There is some evidence that it was Squire “Green” Wilson who fathered the idea of a secret interview between Billy and the Governor. A spy who kept Billy informed of the various moves in Lincoln and Fort Stanton may well have carried the idea to the boy, who was still dodging the rather clumsy detachment of troopers, hard on his trail. Billy was tired of being eternally on the dodge. And the prospect that the Governor might somehow or other be able to wipe out the murder indictments held against him was worth any try.

On either the 14th or 15th of March a messenger handed the Governor a letter that bore neither a date nor place mark. It was in Billy’s handwriting, and save for a little individuality in punctuation it was above the average in frontier scholarship:

To his Excellency the Governor,

Gen. Lew Wallace

Dear Sir:

I have heard you will give one thousand $dollars for my body which as I understand it means alive as a Witness. I know it is as a witness against those that Murdered Mr. Chapman, if it was so that I could appear at Court I could give the desired information but I have indictments against me for things that happened in the late Lincoln County War and am afraid to give up because they would kill me. the day Mr. Chapman was murdered I was in Lincoln at the request of good Citizens to meet Mr. J. J. Dolan to meet as Friends, so as to be able to lay aside our arms and go to Work. I was present when Mr. Chapman was Murdered and know who did it and if it were not for these indictments I would have made it clear before now. if it is in your power to Annul those indictments I hope you will do so as to give me a chance to explain, please send me an answer telling me what you can do You can send answer by bearer I have no Wish to fight any more indeed I have not raised an arm since Your proclamation, as to my Character I refer to any of the Citizens for the majority of them are my Friends and have been helping me all they could. I am called Kid Antrim, but Antrim is my stepfathers name.

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