14

The Capture

When in the neighborhood of Fort Sumner, Billy Bonney drifted from one bunking place to another. Sometimes he camped in vacant rooms of the old fort buildings, sometimes with congenial Hispanic sheepherders on the surrounding plains, sometimes with the scattering of Anglo cattlemen. In June 1880, the federal census enumerator found him living with Charley Bowdre and recorded him as “cattle worker,” aged twenty-five (instead of the correct twenty). In August he put up at the dwelling of a stockman named Starke, where the attraction was a woman who had left her husband for a more exciting life.1

Favored stopping places were the Yerby and the Wilcox-Brazil ranches. The former, where Charley Bowdre and Tom Pickett worked, stood at the head of Arroyo Cañaditas, twenty miles northeast of Fort Sumner. As foreman, Charley lived there with Manuela, and Billy and his comrades often stayed there.

The latter ranch, a partnership between Thomas W. Wilcox and Manuel S. Brazil, stood about midway between Sumner and the Yerby headquarters, just below the forks of Taiban Creek and near a seep named Stinking Springs. Wilcox and Brazil extended their hospitality because of past friendship but also, increasingly, because they feared for their lives if they did not. Here, as elsewhere around Fort Sumner, Billy’s welcome was beginning to wear thin.

Whether he sensed the rising animosity or not, Billy had commenced to think seriously of moving on, as friends like Dr. Hoyt had urged. The fiascos at Coyote Springs and the Greathouse ranch had been setbacks, and with Wilson and Rudabaugh he had endured a humiliating trek back to Sumner on foot. There he ran into further causes for despair. One was the recent “raid” on Fort Sumner engineered by Azariah Wild.

With Joseph Lea and Pat Garrett, Azariah Wild had begun to hatch his ambitious scheme as early as November 4. As deputy U.S. marshals, Garrett and Olinger would lead a “posse comitatus” of fifty men north from Roswell. At Fort Sumner they would combine with Frank Stewart and the Panhandle cowboys in a sweep of the outlaw haunts. Barney Mason would report on where the fugitives were most likely to be found.2

Originally set for November 21, the operation encountered its first delay when Barney Mason, en route from Fort Sumner to Roswell, paused at the Diedrick ranch at Bosque Grande. There Dan Diedrick invited him to undertake a mission in behalf of the counterfeiters—a trip to Mexico to dispose of thirty thousand fake dollars in exchange for cattle. When informed of this, Wild could not resist the temptation to use Mason as a double agent, and he sent him to White Oaks to develop the invitation further with West and Sam Diedrick. There, as already recounted, Mason chanced on the Kid and his friends in the West and Diedrick corral, and he also discovered that the tumult stirred by their activities had spooked the counterfeiters and had caused them to put Mason’s assignment on hold.

Other delays followed. For one, snowstorms swept the mountains and plains, making travel difficult. For another, a distemper epidemic immobilized large numbers of horses. At last, however, an expedition numbering thirteen men pushed off from Roswell on the night of November 29. Garrett and Olinger led, Mason accompanying.

On the edge of Roswell the posse chanced to meet Sam Cook, one of Billy’s partners in the theft of Padre Polaco’s horses and the fight at Coyote Springs, where Cook had become separated from his cohorts. Locking Cook up in Roswell, the party proceeded up the Pecos to the Diedrick ranch at Bosque Grande. Here they hoped to find men for whom they had warrants. Instead they scooped up two other wanted men, John J. Webb, Rudabaugh’s old friend from Las Vegas, and George Davis, a horse thief. Both had just broken out of the Las Vegas jail. Here too Garrett received a message from Lea, in Roswell, telling of the Kid’s fight on the twenty-seventh at the Greathouse ranch.3

Fort Sumner, New Mexico, 1880–81

The Fort Sumner raid fell far short of Wild’s expectations. Garrett learned from Beaver Smith that the Kid, Wilson, and Rudabaugh had not yet returned from White Oaks but that Bowdre and O’Folliard were at the Yerby ranch. Riding up the Cañaditas, the posse jumped Tom O’Folliard and chased him in a running gun battle from which he escaped only because he rode a fresher mount than did his pursuers. At the Yerby ranch they seized two mules and four horses, stolen property Billy claimed as his. They then rode all the way over to the “outlaw stronghold” at Los Portales, but found no purloined stock.

Returning from Los Portales, Garrett learned that Charley Bowdre wanted to square himself with the law. On December 5, in a truce parley arranged by Tom Wilcox, Charley met with Garrett on the road just outside Sumner and talked over the possibility of surrendering and facing trial for the murder of Buckshot Roberts. Garrett told him that Joseph Lea and fellow Roswell stalwarts would help him if he would cut his ties with the Kid and other outlaws. Charley said he would try, although he could not help but feed them when they came to the Yerby ranch. Garrett warned that he better act quickly, before the posse ran him down and killed or captured him.4

The grand sweep envisioned by Wild had fizzled. Garrett’s expedition netted two fugitives, but not the ones sought. Despite a courier sent from Roswell, Stewart’s Texans remained on the Pecos. A third initiative, by the “White Oaks Rangers” who had cornered Billy at the Greathouse ranch, also petered out when the pursuers gave up the chase. On December 6 Garrett and Mason, with prisoners Webb and Davis in tow, set forth from Fort Sumner for Las Vegas. Olinger led the rest of the posse back to Roswell.

Within a day or two after Garrett’s departure, the Kid, with Wilson and Rudabaugh, limped into Fort Sumner. Here Billy learned that the Las Vegas Gazette had named him New Mexico’s star outlaw and called for his apprehension, that Garrett’s posse had seized his stock and almost caught Tom O’Folliard, and that Charley Bowdre was on the point of defecting. As a result of his parley with Garrett, Charley had abandoned his dwelling at the Yerby ranch, moved Manuela into Fort Sumner, and now camped at various places on the range.

Uniting with O’Folliard and Tom Pickett, the Kid, Wilson, and Rudabaugh remounted themselves and divided their time among the Yerby ranch, the Wilcox-Brazil ranch, and Fort Sumner.5 When in town they bunked in one of the vacant rooms of the old military hospital building on the east edge of the compound. Manuela Bowdre and her mother occupied other rooms of this building, and Charley stayed there when he was in town. On most nights the men were to be found in Beaver Smith’s saloon, drinking and gambling.

They also planned their departure from Fort Sumner, for they had decided that the time had come to pull up stakes and leave the area altogether. During this period, on December 12, Billy wrote his disingenuous letter to Governor Wallace proclaiming his innocence of all wrongdoing.

Three days later, on December 15, Bowdre also took pen in hand to enlist the good offices of Joseph Lea. Charley told of vacating the Yerby ranch and taking to the open range. “I thought this a duty due Mr. Yerby,” he wrote, “for if there is nothing to eat at the ranch no one will go there & there will be no chance of a fight coming off there.” He thought the law should quit hounding him, he told Lea. Only the misfortune of an indictment distinguished his case from that of dozens of other participants in the Lincoln County War and prevented him from pleading the governor’s amnesty and going free. If Lea could intercede with Governor Wallace and get the charges dropped, Bowdre wanted to settle down and lead an honest life.

As for Billy Bonney and Billy Wilson, Bowdre informed Lea that they would probably move elsewhere and start life anew. “I saw the two Billies the other day,” he wrote, “& they say they are going to leave this country. That was my advice to them for I believe it is the best thing they can do.” According to Garrett, Bonney also wrote to Lea announcing his intention to “leave the country for good.”6

As Garrett had informed Bowdre, however, he and his men “were after the gang and would sleep on their trail until we took them in, dead or alive.” Still bearing the deputy U.S. marshal’s commission that empowered him to operate beyond Lincoln County, Garrett had been far from idle. In Las Vegas he met up with Frank Stewart, the Panhandle stockmen’s detective, and learned that they had dispatched two parties of cowboys to search for their stolen cattle in New Mexico. Numbering a dozen or more men, with two chuck wagons, this expedition was on the Pecos below Anton Chico, bound for White Oaks. With Mason and Stewart, Garrett set forth to overtake the Texans.7

The three men reached the camp of the cowboys early on December 15. The ranch owners had not told the hands the whole truth about their mission, only that they were to recover stolen cattle. In seeking volunteers for a quick dash on Fort Sumner, therefore, Stewart and Garrett spoke guardedly. Most of the men guessed the purpose, and not all wanted to tangle with the Kid and his friends. Six men volunteered, while the rest elected to continue on the road to White Oaks.8

The party laid over for a night and a day in Puerto de Luna, where they rested their horses, warmed themselves in Grzelachowski’s store, and tried to recruit more fighters. Emboldened by free-flowing whiskey, the townsmen signed up in force only to vanish when the departure time came the next day, December 17. “Without shame they had sneaked off into the night,” commented Charles Rudulph, who with George Wilson and the brothers Juan and José Roybal represented Puerto de Luna and rounded out the posse at thirteen men.9

Already on the seventeenth, Garrett had commissioned José Roybal as a spy. Padre Polaco had recommended the young Hispanic as exceptionally reliable, and that afternoon he proved it. Nosing around Fort Sumner, he discovered the presence of all the fugitives—Bonney, Rudabaugh, Wilson, Bowdre, Pickett, and O’Folliard. In the evening, under graying skies, Roybal crossed the Pecos and headed up the road toward Puerto de Luna. Suspicious, Pickett and O’Folliard followed, halted the boy, and grilled him at length. With an air of innocence, José explained that he was but a simple sheepherder searching for stray sheep. Convinced, O’Folliard and Pickett returned to town.10

Near midnight, at a ranch about twenty-five miles up the Pecos, Roybal linked up with Garrett and his men and relayed his observations in Sumner. After a hasty meal of “pickled tripe, roast beef, and plenty of horse feed,” according to Lou Bousman, the riders resumed their journey, flurries of wind-driven snow stinging their faces.

Billy and his friends, meantime, were alert to an approaching danger, as the action of O’Folliard and Pickett in following Roybal suggests. The mail carrier from Las Vegas had told them that Pat Garrett and Barney Mason were on their way back to Sumner, but he had known nothing of the eleven other men who now rode with them. On the night of the seventeenth, after Roybal had left town, Billy and his comrades rode out too, putting up for the night at the Wilcox-Brazil ranch. They intended to return on the nineteenth with a load of beef, stock up on provisions, and carry out their intention to seek new fields of endeavor. According to Rudabaugh, their destination was Mexico.11

Amid densely falling snow, Garrett and his posse reached Sumner before daybreak on December 18, only to discover that the quarry had skipped town the night before, after Roybal’s departure. Carefully, skillfully, Garrett set about baiting a trap to lure them back. Hiding his men in the old military hospital on the east edge of the compound, Garrett himself went visibly around the community. He talked with one Yginio García, suspected of being a compadre of the Kid’s, who was about to leave for his place south of town. Garrett refused to let him go, but then gave in to his pleas that his children needed milk.

As Garrett doubtless foresaw, word of his presence in Fort Sumner swiftly reached the Kid and his friends. On the road south of Sumner, two of Billy’s occasional accomplices, Bob Campbell and José Valdez, met Yginio García. He told them that he had just seen Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner. While Valdez hurried to Sumner to learn more, Campbell scrawled a message to Billy and sought out a boy to speed it to the Wilcox-Brazil ranch. Alarmed by Campbell’s note, Billy called off his trip into town; the snowstorm made travel difficult anyway. The next morning, however, he instructed Juan (or Johnny) Gallegos, Wilcox’s young stepson, to ride into Sumner and scout the situation.

In Fort Sumner, meanwhile, Garrett had talked with José Valdez and suspected his purpose. On the morning of the nineteenth he spotted Juan Gallegos and guessed his assignment also. Both Wilcox and Brazil hosted the Kid and his friends through fear rather than friendship, Garrett knew, and he hoped that they might be enlisted in his mission. Approaching Juan, Garrett persuaded him to aid in tricking Billy. Next the lawman hunted up José Valdez and forced him to write a note to Billy stating that Garrett and a posse had been in Fort Sumner but had pulled out and were headed for Roswell. Finally, Garrett himself penned a message to Tom Wilcox divulging his plans and asking his aid in trapping Billy. Bearing both notes, with a warning not to get them mixed up, Juan returned to the ranch.

The note delivered to Billy by Juan Gallegos produced the intended effect. Shouting scorn for the timid lawmen, the Kid and his companions at once readied their horses for the ride into Sumner. The storm had abated, snow lay deep on the plains, and banks of fog reflected a bright moon.

In the old hospital building, that night of December 19, the posse settled in to wait. Garrett felt certain the fugitives would come and would stop at Manuela Bowdre’s rooms before going elsewhere. He posted Lon Chambers outside to keep watch while he, Barney Mason, Tom Emory, and Bob Williams spread a blanket on the floor next to the blazing fireplace and launched into a game of poker. Jim East wrapped himself in a blanket and curled up in a corner to get some sleep. About 8:00 P.M. Chambers opened the door and announced horsemen approaching on the road from the east.

“Get your guns, boys,” said Garrett. “None but the men we want are riding this time of night.”

The lawmen slipped out the door. With Chambers and one of the Roybal brothers, Garrett took a station in the shadows at the east end of the porch, where harness hung on the wall to provide added concealment. Mason and the others went around the building in the opposite direction to intercept the outlaws if they continued toward the town’s plaza (the old parade ground).

O’Folliard and Pickett rode in the front, the others lagging behind. The two spurred their horses up to the building, and O’Folliard’s horse nuzzled his head under the portal roof.

“Halt,” shouted Garrett.

Startled, Tom went for his pistol, and both Garrett and Chambers fired their Winchesters at the same time. The horse reared and dashed off, Tom crying in pain. The two then fired at Pickett, who also yelled as if hit and galloped away.

The rest of Garrett’s men appeared at the other end of the building and opened a random fire, ineffective in the thickening fog. The Kid and his remaining companions swiftly reined about and, with their horses kicking up clods of snow, galloped off on the road to the east.

Tom O’Folliard’s horse trotted away for about 150 yards, then wheeled and drifted slowly back to the building, Tom slumping in the saddle.

“Don’t shoot, Garrett,” he stammered. “I’m killed.” Garrett’s bullet had caught Tom in the left chest, just below the heart.12

The possemen helped Tom off his horse, carried him inside, and laid him on Jim East’s blanket near the fire. The poker group resumed their game, and East sat down by the fire.

“God damn you Garrett,” exclaimed Tom. “I hope to meet you in hell.”

“I would not talk that way, Tom,” replied Garrett. “You are going to die in a few minutes.”

“Aw, go to hell, you long-legged son-of-a-bitch,” said Tom.

“The game went on,” East related, “and the blood began running inside Tom. He began groaning and asked me to get him a drink of water. I did. He drank a little, lay back, shuddered, and was dead.”13

The other outlaws fled back to the Wilcox-Brazil ranch. Rudabaugh’s horse had been hit and died along the way. Dave climbed up behind Billy Wilson for the rest of the ride. According to Garrett, Tom Pickett bolted off to the north. Although unhit, he was “nearly scared to death. He went howling over the prairie, yelling bloody murder.” After a run of twenty-five miles, the horse collapsed, and he had to make his way on foot to the Wilcox-Brazil ranch.14

“Depressed and disheartened,” in Garrett’s words, Billy and his partners paused only briefly at the ranch. Fearful of a swift pursuit by the posse, they pulled off into the hills. Throughout the next day, December 20, as another snowstorm swept the plains, they remained in hiding, keeping their field glasses trained on the ranch to see whether Garrett and his men appeared. After dark, the four crept back to the sheltering buildings, reunited with Tom Pickett, took supper, and plotted the next move. Although suspicious that Wilcox and Brazil had somehow contributed to their surprise in Fort Sumner, they decided nonetheless to send Brazil into town on a scouting mission.

Garrett and his men stuck close to their fireplace on December 20, either likewise plotting strategy or simply uncertain of the next move. Several of the Texans went up the road to the east and found Rudabaugh’s dead horse, but the new snow had erased the outlaw trail. Garrett had a coffin made. “We buried Tom Folliard rather unceremoniously,” said Charles Rudulph, “with all his pursuers and a few villagers in attendance.”15

On the morning of December 21, Manuel Brazil came into Fort Sumner on his scouting assignment for Billy and went directly to Garrett. The two arranged for Brazil to return to the ranch and tell the outlaws that Garrett was in Sumner “with only Mason and three Mexicans” and that he “was considerably scared up and wanted to go back to Roswell, but feared to leave the plaza.”16

Brazil did not go back to the ranch until the next day, the twenty-second. There he relayed the tale that Garrett had concocted and played his dangerous double game skillfully enough to dupe Billy. The Kid wanted to ride into Sumner and fall on Garrett and his single deputy, but Charley Bowdre, probably still hoping that Lea would help him get free of the law, objected.17 Instead, that night the five fugitives ate heartily, then set forth in the snow on the road to the east. Brazil promptly saddled up and headed toward Sumner, reaching there at midnight stiff with cold and his beard full of ice.

At once Garrett mounted his dozen men and pounded out of Fort Sumner in the frozen night. Brazil went ahead to check the ranch, then came back and met the posse with word that the outlaws had not returned but that their trail in the snow could be plainly followed by the light of a bright moon. Garrett suspected that the trail would lead to an abandoned rock house, once the shelter of a sheepman, that stood near Stinking Springs about three miles east of the Wilcox-Brazil ranch. About 3:00 A.M. on December 23, the pursuers drew close to their objective.

All five outlaws—Bonney, Rudabaugh, Bowdre, Wilson, and Pickett—lay wrapped in their blankets on the floor of the rock house, their snores plainly audible to the lawmen creeping into positions outside. Pressed by Garrett, discomfited by the loss of O’Folliard, they meant to leave the Fort Sumner country altogether. Regarding the Wilcox-Brazil ranch as unsafe, they had ridden over to the rock house to spend the night before pulling out. It was a one-room structure, with openings that had once been a door and a window. The men had led two of their horses inside and had tied the other three outside to projections of the vigas that supported the flat roof.

Leaving Juan Roybal to tend the horses, Garrett divided his force and worked into positions on two sides of the house. He himself led one party up an arroyo that provided cover within easy firing distance of the door and window while Stewart circled with the remaining men to the rear of the house. Garrett wanted to rush into the house at once, but Stewart demurred. The lawmen therefore picked firing positions and settled into the snow to await daybreak.18

As the frigid white landscape brightened with first light, Garrett’s men saw a single figure, carrying a nose bag full of grain for the horses, emerge from the house. Convinced that the Kid would not allow himself to be taken without a fight, Garrett had resolved not to try but to shoot at once when he had the fugitive in his sights. The others, he felt sure, would then surrender. A “Mexican” hat with a wide brim, together with other distinctive clothing, satisfied Garrett that here was his man. At Garrett’s signal, his companions took careful aim with their Winchesters and fired as one. Reeling from the impact of the bullets, the man fell back into the doorway and vanished inside.19

The fusillade had not struck the Kid but his friend and comrade of the Lincoln County War, Charley Bowdre. Billy Wilson shouted to Garrett that he had hit Bowdre, who wanted to surrender. Garrett assented, if Bowdre would come out with his hands up.

“They have murdered you, Charley,” Garrett heard the Kid say, “but you can get revenge. Kill some of the sons-of-bitches before you die.” Pulling Charley’s belt around so that the holstered pistol hung in front of his body, the Kid shoved his friend out the door.

His hands in the air, Bowdre staggered slowly to where Garrett waited, whispered “I wish, I wish, I wish—I’m dying,” and collapsed.

“I took hold of him,” said Garrett, “laid him gently on my blankets and he died almost immediately.”20

Shortly afterward, Garrett noted movement in the rope that bound one of the outlaw horses. Obviously, the fugitives were pulling their mounts inside prior to making a break. Just as they were about to get one through the door, Garrett fired, dropping the horse in the doorway. To put a stop to this tactic, Garrett took careful aim and cut the ropes tying the other two animals, which sprang away from the house and trotted off.21

The desperate predicament of the outlaws did not dampen Billy’s good humor. For a time he and Garrett bantered back and forth, the Kid inviting Garrett in for coffee, Garrett inviting the Kid out to surrender. “The Kid told him to go to hell,” recalled East.

“We heard them picking on the other side of the house,” according to East, evidently in an attempt to break through or at least fashion firing ports. “Garrett sent Tom Emory and me around to stop that,” East continued. “We fired a shot or two at the place and they stopped.”

Billy was trapped and he knew it. Garrett’s quick thinking and accurate aim had thwarted the escape plot, as Billy later admitted. “If it hadn’t been for the dead horse in the doorway I wouldn’t be here,” he told a Las Vegas reporter several days later. “I would have ridden out on my bay mare and taken my chances of escaping. But I couldn’t ride out over that, for she would have jumped back, and I would have got it in the head. We could have stayed in the house but there wouldn’t have been anything gained by that for they would have starved us out. I thought it was better to come out and get a good square meal.”22

Garrett, meantime, had the needs of his own men in mind. He took half of them to the Wilcox-Brazil ranch and fed them breakfast, then sent the other half. Late in the afternoon, in preparation for a long siege, Brazil drove up in a wagon loaded with firewood, horse feed, bacon, and other “grub.” The aroma of roasting meat wafted into the rock house and evoked Billy’s vision of “a good square meal.” Almost at once, at about 4:00 P.M., a dirty white rag tied to a stick fluttered from the window. Rudabaugh shouted that they wanted to surrender. Garrett replied that they could come out with their hands up.

Rudabaugh emerged alone. He said that all would give up if Garrett could guarantee their protection from violence—a pressing concern to Rudabaugh because of the sentiment against him in Las Vegas. He wanted to make certain they would be taken to Santa Fe and arraigned on federal charges rather than turned over to Las Vegas authorities. Garrett acceded. Rudabaugh went back into the house. Shortly, all four came out with their hands up.

As they approached, Barney Mason leveled his rifle at the Kid and exclaimed, “Kill the son of a bitch, he is slippery and may get away.”

Mason, as East observed, was “a damned old no-good troublemaker.” East and Lee Hall “threw our guns down on him and said: ‘If you fire a shot we will kill you.’” Barney backed off.23

From the Wilcox-Brazil ranch Garrett sent three men with a wagon back to the rock house for the body of Bowdre. Mrs. Wilcox fed the entire bunch, and they spent the night at the ranch, the prisoners closely watched and their guards instructed to shoot them on the slightest provocation. Of the captives, Rudulph recalled: “There was Billy, cheerful and chattering, excitement lighting up his face; Rudabaugh, also joyful and talkative; Tom Pickett, scared half to death, pondering his fate; and Billy Wilson, probably the least to blame, ashamed and uncommunicative.”24

Shortly before noon on December 24, the lawmen and their catch reached Fort Sumner, where they paused long enough to iron the prisoners and eat a hearty meal. While there, Billy presented Jim East with his Winchester rifle. But, as East remembered, “old Beaver Smith made such a roar about an account he said Billy owed him, that at the request of Billy, I gave old Beaver the gun.”25

After the men had eaten, a Navajo woman appeared. She was Deluvina Maxwell, a captive of the Ute Indians liberated by Lucien Maxwell in her youth and now, at twenty-two, a voluntary “slave” of the Maxwells. She said that Mrs. Maxwell, the widow of Lucien, asked if Garrett would let Billy come for a last farewell with her daughter Paulita. Consenting, Garrett assigned Jim East and Lee Hall to serve as guards. Dave Rudabaugh had to go too, since he and Billy were shackled together.

At the Maxwell house, the men found “Mother” Maxwell, Deluvina, and Paulita. Mrs. Maxwell asked if Billy could be freed long enough to go into the next room with Paulita and “talk awhile.” Although the two probably had things other than escape in mind, East and Hall believed “it was only a stall of Billy’s: to make a run for liberty.” They refused, and as East told it, “The lovers embraced, and she gave Billy one of those soul kisses the novelists tell us about, till it being time to hit the trail for Vegas, we had to pull them apart, much against our wishes, for you know all the world loves a lover.”26

Another, less romantic scene also unfolded at Fort Sumner. As the procession drew up at the old hospital, recalled Charles Rudulph, “we were met by a deranged, lamenting Manuela Bowdre. She kicked and pummelled Pat Garrett until she had to be pulled away.” Garrett asked Jim East and Lou Bousman to carry the corpse into Manuela’s rooms. “As we started in with him,” said East, “she struck me over the head with a branding iron, and I had to drop Charlie at her feet. The poor woman was crazy with grief.” Garrett told Manuela to buy Charley a new suit for his burial and have it charged to him. He also paid someone to dig a grave.27

In the early afternoon, Pat Garrett led his horsemen out of Fort Sumner on the road up the Pecos.

On this same day, Joseph C. Lea sat at his desk in Roswell and wrote a letter to Governor Lew Wallace. In it he told of Charley Bowdre’s dilemma and his desire to free himself from his fellow outlaws and lead an honest life. Bowdre, wrote Lea, was “a man far above ordinary in point of intelligence.” All who knew him “say you can depend on his word & I have no doubt of it.” At present he was “a man between two fires.” But if the governor would talk with the district attorney and get the charges against Bowdre dropped, Lea and his friends thought it “decidedly best for the country and all concerned.” “We had better try to make a good man of him,” he concluded, “& we have many reasons for believing that we can.”28

It was Christmas Eve of 1880. Lea folded his own letter with Charley Bowdre’s letter to him of December 15 and sealed them in an envelope addressed to Governor Wallace in Santa Fe. To the north, Pat Garrett stowed his prisoners in Brazil’s wagon and set out from Fort Sumner for the long cold ride to Las Vegas. And in the abandoned hospital building at Fort Sumner, the grieving Manuela Bowdre dressed her dead husband in a new suit paid for by Pat Garrett, laid out his body, and encircled it with glowing candles.29