In the summer of 1881, Billy the Kid, hiding out around the hamlet of Fort Sumner in east-central New Mexico, should have known that Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett would try to hunt him down and kill him. The Kid had just broken out of jail in Lincoln, New Mexico, where he had been sent by a judge and jury in Mesilla, New Mexico, to hang for murder. He had shot two deputy sheriffs to death during his escape. He had learned that his notoriety had spread from coast to coast. He surely understood that Garrett would not just forget about him.
Billy the Outlaw
Although only 21, The Kid – also known as Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim or William Bonney, names reflecting the shards of his fractured family life – had already given a new dimension to the notion of “outlaw.” He had ridden with several gangs, hustled in the regional gaming halls, busted his companions out of imprisonment, stolen horses across the territory, rustled cows in New Mexico and Texas, fought in the infamous Lincoln County War, escaped from several jailhouses, gunned down at least four and possibly as many as ten men, and terrorized people from the Rio Grande to the Pecos River to the High Plains.
After his escape from jail in Lincoln, Billy the Kid had fled to Fort Sumner because he had friends there, including many among the Hispanic people, who – like their Spanish ancestors – admired a wild spirit and reckless audacity. Billy knew that he could count on them for a bunk and a meal in their adobe homes and sheep camps. He could rely on them to keep a secret. He thought that he could hang around the community until he could put some money in his pocket and head south for Mexico, beyond the reach of Pat Garrett, according to Robert M. Utley in his book Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life.
