Stalking Billy the Kid by Marc Simmons

Author:Marc Simmons [Simmons, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780865345256
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 2287648
Publisher: Sunstone Press
Published: 2006-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Miguel A. Otero (right) and his brother Page B. Otero (left), about 1880. (After Otero)

“The Kid was disappointed that the mob did not attack the car since it would unquestionably have resulted in his escape,” observes Otero in his biography. And he describes him as “a short, slender young man with large front teeth, giving a chronic grin to his expression.”

Having witnessed the stirring events at the train station, Miguel, Jr., and his brother Page got permission from their father to go on board for the ride to the capital. On the way they visited with Billy and Dave Rudabaugh, even becoming a bit chummy.

According to Otero, “In Santa Fe we were allowed to see the Kid in jail, taking him cigarette papers, tobacco, chewing gum, candy, pies and nuts. He was very fond of sweets and asked us to bring him all we could.”

By all accounts Billy the Kid was much adored by New Mexico’s Hispano population. Otero asserts that he was considerate of the old, the young, and the poor. And he was loyal to his friends.

He quotes a Mrs. Jaramillo of Fort Sumner who testified that “Billy was a good boy, but he was hounded by men who wanted to kill him because they feared him.”

Further, Martin Chaves of Santa Fe stated: “Billy was a perfect gentleman with a noble heart. He never killed a native citizen of New Mexico in all his career, and he had plenty of courage.”

Otero was especially admiring of Billy because as a boy in Silver City, “he had loved his mother devotedly.” Such praise must be viewed in the context of the times. Other people, of course, saw Billy as an arch-villain.

Otero’s biography, The Real Billy the Kid, was printed at the height of the Depression in a very small edition. One scholar recently made a computer check and could locate only 118 copies preserved in libraries, world-wide!

An unknown and doubtless limited number remain in private collections. I have a copy in my personal library, obtained long ago at considerable cost. I regard the volume as a prime treasure.

In 1998 Arte Público Press of Houston published a paperback edition of Otero’s work, its first reprinting. A note in the new, politicized introduction claimed that Governor Otero’s narrative had “challenged the image of Billy the Kid as rendered by the Euroamerican colonial power structure,” and thus his text had not been as popular as Pat Garrett’s book or those by other Anglo-American writers. Therefore, it had taken all these years for Otero’s voice on Billy the Kid to be reintroduced to the public!

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