Billy the Kid

 

Billy the Kid

Noel Laflin

7-14-23

 

Sheriff Pat Garrett shot Henry McCarty, popularly known as Billy the Kid, to death at the Maxwell Ranch in New Mexico on this day in 1881, which puts into question the story an old cousin of ours, who grew up on a ranch in rural New Mexico, used to tell us when we were young.

 

Our old cowboy cousin would regale us kids with tales of the Old West. I especially liked the time he and his mother once hid Billy the Kid in their barn as the posse was hot on his tail. They did so upon pain of death if they did not comply, or so Dick would tell us. He said he was five or six years old at the time, but remembered it like it was yesterday. The rifle pointed from the barn, directly at his head, when the posse stopped to question them as they stood upon the old house porch, was enough to make them lie and swear the outlaw had never passed their way.

 

Billy eventually saddled up his horse, tipped his hat, and thanked them both, before riding off into the sunset once the coast was clear - or so Cousin Dick concluded, then asked us kids if anyone had a smoke handy after recalling such a horrendous experience from his youth. We said no, and he replied that it was okay, before wandering off in search his tobacco pouch.

 

It wasn't until a few years ago that we uncovered the fact that our old cousin was actually born two years after the death of Billy the Kid. As Dick had died fifty years prior to this finding, it was difficult to bring this little detail to his attention.

 

Somehow, I wish we had never learned of this discrepancy as his story was a riveting one. And I, once upon a time, believed it all, hook, line and sinker, as it was told so well by a friendly former cowboy of the Old West - the land of wonderful tall tales.