The pardon of Billy the Kid – Part 2

This article is a continuation of ‘The pardon of Billy the Kid – Part 2’.

A mob of merchants, shop owners LG Murphy & Co., controlled all trade, in collusion with the sheriff. Tunstall then allied himself with the rancher John Chisum to try to break that monopoly. In return, the corrupt sheriff, William Brady, hired gunmen to
kill Tunstall in an ambush. With this incident began the Lincoln County War.

The seed of vengeance was then born in the heart of Billy the Kid. No mercy and no forgiveness, annihilated the sheriff and his assistants in the dusty main street of Lincoln. And fled to Texas. The new governor, Lew Wallace, came to New Mexico eager to
heal old wounds and proclaimed an amnesty for any man who had taken part in the war of Lincoln.

Billy the Kid wrote from Texas. It was by then a notorious gunslinger. Wallace offered his pardon if he returned to New Mexico and was testifying in a trial for another murder. Bonney cooperated, but found that the Governor broke his word and did not object
to his arrest. Thirsty for revenge, Billy the Kid turned to flee and took refuge in the desert. For a year, Lincoln County had a new sheriff: Pat Garrett.

The fates of the two met during those months on several occasions and the two men created a strange admiration. Finally, Garrett found and arrested in the town of Bonney Stinking Springs. He was tried for the murder of Sheriff Brady and sentenced to be hanged,
but escaped again. In their flight killed two other officers. Garrett decided to look for in a place where they had taken refuge in the past: Fort Sumner, 200 miles from Lincoln. Nearby, on July 14, 1881, the sheriff went to the house of Pete Maxwell, he suspected
that was known of Billy the Kid.

While questioning him, by his bed, went inside a barefoot man with a knife in his left hand and a revolver in his right. It was Billy the Kid. Pat Garret and remember that final meeting in a biography of the gunman: "As fast as I could, and fired my gun
holsters, throwing aside, and fired again. The second shot was useless, had fallen dead. Two convulsions and Billy the Kid went with his many victims. "

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Posted by Fouad Ashraf on May 3 2012. Filed under USA, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry