A few weeks ago,
I wrote about Billy the Kid and the controversy concerning whether he was left-
or right-handed. Sure enough, my email
on the subject was pretty evenly divided on both sides of the controversy. While I have no reason to stir up that
hornet’s nest again, I do
have a related topic to discuss.
In November of 1880,
Pat Garrett was appointed sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico. One of his first jobs was to track down his
erstwhile friend, Henry McCarty--alias Billy the Kid--for his murderous role in
the famed Lincoln County War. In earlier
days, Pat and Billy had been friends who had frequented the gaming tables in
saloons scattered around the south half of the state. Standing several inches over six feet, Pat
was a tall man, and was known as “Big Casino,” while the diminutive Billy was
known as “Little Casino.”
Now, Sheriff
Garrett gathered a posse and began to chase Billy’s gang. Within months, the posse had killed two
members of the gang and had captured Billy and the rest. Though Billy was convicted, he managed to
kill two guards and escape from the jail.
In less than three months, Garrett was able to track down and kill The
Kid in the town of Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
Like everything else involving Billy, there are differing versions as to
how the fight took place.
One thing is certain: Pat Garrett became famous as a
lawman and a gunman. And the sheriff
exploited his fame: he ran for several
political offices (usually unsuccessfully), he produced a book about Billy
(which was actually ghostwritten by Ash Upson), and he became a rancher. President Theodore Roosevelt gave him the
job of Customs Agent. For a while,
Garrett was even a captain in the Texas Rangers. Eventually, he returned to his quarter horse
ranch on the eastern slopes of the San Andres Mountains.
Garrett was a
difficult man to get along with, and eventually he got into a long feud with
Wayne Brazel, a tenant who had leased some grazing land from Garrett. Garrett, not realizing the rancher intended
to raise goats on the land, was furious.
In 1908, while Garrett was riding a buckboard into Las Cruces, Brazel
rode up and the two men began to quarrel.
According to the goat rancher, Garrett allegedly bent over to reach for
a shotgun but Brazel drew and fired
first, killing the lawman.
Pardon the interruption, but have you noticed that nearly every fact
connected to the Wild West is about as firm as fresh cowpie on a hot summer
day? We don't know hardly anything
for sure. There is a great
story--probably apocryphal, of course--about an old frontier doctor in the wild,
rip-roaring town of El Paso, who best came to grips with this problem.
In 1895, the old doc was called out one night to examine the body of
John Wesley Hardin, who was a notorious badman.
When he was poor, he crossed the border into New Mexico territory, where
he was an assassin for hire. At home in
El Paso, he was even worse--he was a lawyer!
There is no doubt about it--Hardin was a bad man. He once (and I hope you understand that I am
not at all certain about this story inside a story inside the story about
Garrett) shot a man in an adjoining hotel room just because he snored
too loudly. Hardin was mean enough to
have a fight with a rattler and give the snake the first bite.
Well, Hardin and John Selman, the local deputy, had gotten into an
argument, and Hardin had promised to kill the deputy when next he saw him. Now, if Hardin had promised to kill you,
one more clean white shirt would probably do for you. Selman--wisely--decided to strike first.
Searching the various bars, gambling halls, and assorted playgrounds
that made up the seedier side of El Paso, Selman looked into the Acme Saloon and
saw Hardin standing at the bar, playing poker dice with a local.
Everyone was certain that Selman had shot Hardin from the doorway, but
few agreed on the details. Selman
claimed that he had yelled, "Hardin!" and as the famed shootist
turned to face the deputy, he had moved to draw his gun, forcing Selman to
shoot Hardin.
Hardin's friends however, claimed that Selman had not yelled a
warning, but had just shot the gunfighter in the back. The argument was heated, violence was
eminent, and so the old doctor was called in to provide the official version of
how the famed badman had died. Had
Hardin been shot in the front or in the back?
This was "CSI", Wild West style.
Well, this put the physician in quite a dilemma. No matter how he ruled, half the town was
going to be angry with him. The doctor's
official testimony is a masterpiece of diplomacy:
"If he was shot in the front, it was damn fine shooting. And if he was shot in the back, it was damn
fine judgment."
And so it is with the various versions of what "really"
happened in the Old West. Pick the
version you like the best, and ride that horse to the finish line, without
looking over your shoulder for stray facts.
Now, back to Pat Garrett.
Garrett's
children continued to live in New Mexico, with the last of them passing away
just a little over twenty years ago. The
ranch, however, did not stay with the family.
During World War II, 3,200 square miles of desert land east of Las
Cruces and north of El Paso suddenly found other military uses, such as for
artillery ranges, bomber training areas, missile ranges, and, eventually, as an
atomic proving ground.
Some of that land
had belonged to ranchers, to miners, and, even to a few homesteaders. The government used the eminent domain law
and bought the land from the previous owners, fenced the whole area off, and
installed the kind of armed patrols and electronic security that--for some
reason--the federal government today says is impossible to duplicate on the
Mexican border just a few miles to the south.
The government
doesn't lie about what's out there, but it doesn't go out of its way to
publicize this land, either. We're not
talking about Area 51, but there are enough stories about lost gold mines,
hidden graves, and ghost towns inside those fences to make a real problem for
the people charged with keeping the curious away from it and safe.
There are
occasional guided tours for those with legitimate reasons to journey into this
restricted area, and while the area is a no-fly zone, the government once even
gave me permission to fly a small Cessna over it.
It might surprise
you to learn that Southern New Mexico has a daily traffic report. The broadcast doesn't warn about traffic
congestion, and no--it doesn't caution you about "the pass" being
blocked by a trail drive. It will,
however, tell you how long the interstate will be shut down due to a
missile launch.
A former student
of mine, Jacob Harrington, now works as a photographer at the range, and he
sent me these photographs. I have put
them here, with his permission, to show what remains of Pat Garrett's ranch. If you click on the photos, you will get an enlargement.
Finally, here
is something we can be sure about. Pat Garret lived in this house, looked
down from this mountain. He
worked this land.
The land has
mountain-fed spring water, and is alive with game. Personally, I like the idea that this land
will never be developed and will remain an isolated place of old memories and
forgotten ghosts. The last people who
lived on and regularly walked this land, didn't read about the Old West:
they lived it.
The embellishment that goes with stories of the Old West is part of what informs you about the nature of the Old West. When Horace Greeley challenged young men to "Go West", pretty much every ADHD male living East of the Mississippi pulled up stakes and headed for Texas, Montana and California and all points along the way and beyond. People with ADHD (like me) are wonderful storytellers - in large part because we live such confused, high energy, high speed lives, we can't exactly remember the details of it very well. Because we think quickly and because we are hyper-attentive we're good hunters, but not very good at data storage. You want an accurate story, get a bookkeeper to write it. You want an interesting story, get one of us grown up hyperactive kids to tell it to you.
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