On August 17, 1877, Billy the Kid shoots an Arizona blacksmith
who dies the next day. He would be the infamous outlaw's first victim. Just how
many men Billy the Kid killed is uncertain. Billy himself reportedly once
claimed he had killed 21 men-"one for every year of my life." A
reliable contemporary authority estimated the actual total was between four and
nine on his own and five with the aid of others. Other western outlaws of the
day were far more deadly. John Wesley Hardin, for example, killed well over 20
men and perhaps as many as 40.
William Bonney (at various times he also used the surnames
Antrim and McCarty) is better remembered today than Hardin and other killers,
perhaps because he appeared to be such an unlikely killer. He seemed to have
been a decent young man who was dragged into a life of crime by circumstances
beyond his control. Such seems to have been the case for his first murder.
Having fled from his home in New Mexico after being jailed for a theft he may
not have committed, Billy became an itinerant ranch hand and sheepherder in
Arizona. In 1877, he was hired on as a teamster at the Camp Grant Army Post,
where he attracted the enmity of a burly civilian blacksmith named Frank
"Windy" Cahill. Perhaps because Billy was well liked by others in the
camp, Cahill enjoyed demeaning the scrawny youngster.
On this day in 1877, Cahill apparently went too far when he
called Billy a "pimp." Billy responded by calling Cahill a "son
of a bitch," and the big blacksmith jumped him and easily threw him to the
ground. Pinned to the floor by the stronger man, Billy apparently panicked. He
pulled his pistol and shot Cahill, who died the next day. According to one
witness, "[Billy] had no choice; he had to use his equalizer."
However, the rough laws of the West might have found Billy guilty of
unjustified murder because Cahill had not pulled his own gun. Fearing
imprisonment, Billy returned to New Mexico where he soon became involved in the
bloody Lincoln County War. In the next four years, he became a practiced and
cold-blooded killer, increasingly infatuated with his own public image as an
unstoppable outlaw. Sheriff Pat Garrett finally ended Billy's bloody career by
killing him on July 14, 1881.
Michael Thomas Barry
is the author of Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California.
The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:
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