The Saga of Billy the Kid/Chapter 11

Looking out across Bonito Valley a few miles west of Lincoln, a quaint adobe farmhouse stands to day on a shelf of land at the foot of tall hills from whose slopes the winds bring the fragrance of piñon. Fields of wheat, oats, and alfalfa spread to the little river which here loiters in lazy loops and still pools. Cattle and sheep graze in the pastures. Orchards hang heavy with apples, pears, plums, and peaches. Within a few yards of the farmhouse door, a brimming asequia sings a song of peace.

This is the home of Ygenio Salazar who by miracle is alive to-day to tell of the bold ruse that saved his life in the great adventure in Lincoln nearly a half century ago. A cheery, gravely courteous man, he is well past threescore and ten, with iron-gray hair and moustache, and tall, broad shouldered frame that suggests power that must have been his in his younger years.

"Billy the Kid," said Salazar, "was the bravest fellow I ever knew. All through the three-days' battle he was as cool and cheerful as if he were playing a game instead of fighting for his life. When it began to look as if we should all be killed, the other men stood about silent, with long faces, hopeless. But not the Kid. He was light-hearted, gay, smiling all the time. 'You look muy contento,' Chavez y Chavez said to him with a sort of resentment. 'Well, why not?' answered the Kid. 'No use getting excited.'

​"A little while before we made a dash for our lives, the Kid rolled a cigarette. I watched him. It seemed just then as if he had about a minute and a half to live. But when he poured the tobacco from his pouch into the cigarette paper he did not spill a flake. His hand was as steady as steel. A blazing chunk of roof fell on the table beside him, barely missing his head. 'Much obliged,' he said; and he bent over and lighted his cigarette from the flame. Then he looked at me and grinned as if he thought that was a good joke. He didn't roll that cigarette because he was nervous but because he wanted a good smoke. You could tell by the way he inhaled the smoke and let it roll out of his mouth that he was getting real pleasure out of it. If you had seen Billy the Kid roll that cigarette and smoke it, señor, you would have known at once that he was a brave man."

Salazar spoke in the language of his fathers, which was Spanish, rapidly, with fire, and dramatic emphasis. He pointed his story with picturesque gestures and more than once arose to illustrate his narrative by convincing pantomime. The old man has a histrionic flair, which is one of the reasons he escaped alive out of the murderous holocaust.

"When it came my turn to dart out the door of the McSween house," he went on, "the Murphy men were firing at a distance of ten yards. Why we were not all killed, I never could understand. I had not run a dozen steps when I was struck by three rifle bullets—in the hand, the left shoulder, and the left side, the bullet in my side passing entirely through my body. I stumbled, twisted over in the air, and fell on my back among the dead bodies of McSween, Romero, Semora, and Harvey Morris.

"I lay there unconscious for a while. When I came to ​my senses, the fight was over and the Murphy men were laughing and drinking whisky among the corpses. It came to me in a flash that my only chance was to play dead, and a pretty slim chance it was. I relaxed all my muscles and sprawled on the ground as limp as a rag. Those fellows had sharp eyes, and how I managed to fool them I don't know. It was a wonder that the twitch of an eyelid or the tremor of a muscle did not betray me. I have always thought I must have been under the protection of guardian angels.

"When old Andy Boyle kicked me to see if I was dead, I thought to myself, 'It's all over now, Ygenio. Goodbye.' And let me tell you that old hombre's kicks were not love-taps. He planted his heavy boots in my wounded side with fearful force. That old man could kick like a mule. And every kick was torture. If he had kicked me only once more I think I must have groaned or yelled, the pain was so terrible. It took all the nerve I had to lie still and keep my eyes shut when I felt the muzzle of his rifle pressed down against my heart and knew that old murderer's finger was about to pull the trigger. I had hated Old Man Pearce, but, from my heart, I gave him a benediction when I heard him tell Boyle that I was dead and not to waste a bullet on me.

"I lay there motionless for three hours and you must remember that all that time I was suffering agony, which made my play-acting in the rôle of a dead man difficult. I knew that men's eyes remain open after death but I thought it best to keep mine closed. That would at least save me the danger of blinking. But at times I opened my eyes the least little bit and through narrow slits between my eyelids saw the Murphy men waltzing around and kicking up their heels as if they had gone crazy with ​joy. The tunes the two old Negroes played on their violin and guitar were as lively and merry as ever set the feet of girls dancing at a fandango, but to me they sounded like funeral dirges. And I thought the music would never stop. I wondered how much longer I could hold out. The pain seemed to be killing me, and I felt I had to move, change position, for relief. But I realized that the slightest movement would change me from a counterfeit dead man into a real one, and I lay still.

“When the crowd finally got tired of their fun and went away whooping and singing and laughing and left me lying there sick, weak from three wounds, in agony, and half dead, I was the happiest man in the world.

“I crawled away stealthily, making no noise, and got down by the river. There I fainted. When I revived, I stumbled on past the old stone tower, intending to go to the Montaña house, but I stopped when I saw the camp of the soldiers, and fell over in another faint. I was growing very weak from loss of blood. I reached the house of Francisco Romero y Valencia and pounded on the door, but Romero was afraid to let me in. I staggered a little way farther to Ike Ellis’s place, but Ben Elis, who answered my knock, wouldn't open the door either. Across a field I saw a light in José Otero’s house where my sister-in-law, Nicolecita Pacheco, was staying. When I got there, Otero opened the door a little way and when he saw me, he was scared and slammed it in my face. ‘1 am Ygenio Salazar,” I said, ‘and I am dying; let me in’ Still Otero wouldn't open the door again. But my sister-in-law had recognized my voice and she caught Otero around the neck and hurled him to the floor and opened the door herself.

“I stood by a little fire in the fireplace and warmed ​myself, for the summer nights in the mountains are cold. My shirt was black and stiff with blood all over, and when my sister-in-law saw it she began to cry. For the third time I swooned and fell to the floor. Otero cut my shirt off my body with a butcher knife and put me to bed.

"Next morning, Terecita Felibosca drove over to Fort Stanton and brought Dr. Richard Wells, the post surgeon. While he was dressing my wounds, John Kinney, one of the worst fellows on the Murphy side, walked in with three other men. They had tracked me by my blood. Kinney said, 'I shot you last night and I've come to finish the job.' Doctor Wells told him not to talk like that. But Kinney said Billy the Kid had killed Bob Beckwith and he was going to have revenge on me for Beckwith's death. His swagger and big talk didn't scare Doctor Wells. 'If you kill this man,' he said, 'I'll see you hanged for it.' And he took Kinney by the arm and led him to the door and put him and the other three men outside. Doctor Wells was a brave man. He saved my life.

"In a day or two, Francisco Pacheco took me secretly to Las Tablas and then, after a short rest, to Fort Sumner, where I was confined to my bed nearly six months before I recovered."

Bob Beckwith is generally credited with having killed McSween, though a post-mortem examination revealed that six bullets had entered the faction leader's body. Most of these bullets, however, it was believed, had been fired after McSween was dead. Two minutes after Beckwith sent up his yell of exultation, he himself was killed by a bullet from Billy the Kid.

Six dead men were the net results of the three-days' battle that ended the Lincoln County war—Crawford, killed back of the Montaña house, and five slain in the ​McSween holocaust. Romero, Semora, and Crawford were buried by their relatives in Lincoln. Beckwith was taken for interment to his old home at Seven Rivers, and beside his grave Bob Ollinger, his friend, swore to avenge his death in the blood of the Kid.

McSween and Morris were laid to rest beside Tunstall back of the McSween store. The little plot of ground where the three men lie is bare to-day even of grass, and their unmarked graves are cluttered over with ashes, tin cans, and indiscriminate rubbish.