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is now Roswell, Brewer took his prisoners, then moved by an out-ofthe-way
road for Lincoln. When near the Agua Negra, they were
killed by The Kid-while on their knees begging for the mercy they
had not shown Tunstall, one story has it. This was March 7, 1878.
Next to die was Shotgun Roberts, whom Brewer, Frank and George
Coe and ten others holed up at Blazer's Mill on the Ruidoso, near
the Mescalero Reservation. Roberts died bravely with his boots on,
after sending Dick Brewer before him, during an epic battle against
odds.
With Brewer's death, the slim, ever-grinning boy they called
The Kid became, by sheer force of personality, leader of the McSween
faction. They had now no slightest sanction of law, for none of them
was ever deputized after Brewer. This lack of legal coloring made of
them outlaws, though their actions were certainly no more savage than
their opponents'.
There was at once no law and too much law in Lincoln County
now. Actually, neither side wanted law-until certain scores had been
settled. But both McSween's side and Murphy's labored hard to
seem to act legally. The judge of the circuit court, Warren Bristol.
wisely decided that to open court just then-April Fool's Day, 1878would
be too fitting to the day. So he ordered the "Murphy Sheriff",
Bill Brady, to open court and adjourn it with the one motion.
Brady, accompanied by J. B. Matthews, deputy-sheriff Hindman
and George Pepin, started downstreet toward the house that was used
for court. The Kid, with Charley Bowdre and four or five others of
his gang, opened fire upon the sheriff's party from behind a corral
fence, dropping Brady and Hindman.
Now the McSweens "elected" John Copeland sheriff. Not to be
outdone, the Murphyites, in June of '78, persuaded Governor Axtell
to appoint George Pepin sheriff. Doubtless, had John Chisum desired
a sheriff, to replace the customary iron deer in his front yard, he
could have had one, too. Two sheriffs, each claiming sole jurisdiction,
backed by posses of the hardest cases either could muster, could bring
about nothing but the bloodshed that was soon to come and give The
Kid fresh laurels as leader.
EAR the first of July, 1878, The Kid and his gang, numbering pert
haps a dozen in all, rode into Lincoln, believing that Sheriff Pepin
and his posse were out of the county-seat. They learned their
error too late to withdraw and holed up in McSween's house. They
were joined by some two-score Mexicans, who took station down the
street from McSween's. The firing began.
It was quite a war that Lincoln saw during three days. The
Kid had about sixty men, while Pepin commanded thirty or forty.
But of the latter some eighteen or twenty were Americans. In the
McSween house with The Kid were Alex. McSween, Harvey Norris,
Tom O'Phalliard and some Mexicans. Charlie Bowdre, with Jack
Middleton and Doc Skurlock, held the store next door.
Near noon of the third day, the commander of Fort Stanton
marched up with a couple of Gatlings and a troop of negro cavalry.
He announced that he would not interfere unless women were fired
upon. He made no move when at dusk Jack Long, one of Pepin's
deputies, fired the house.
Now the besieged men broke from the burning building-McSween,
The Kid, O'Phalliard, Bowdre and the others. The dusk of the warm
July night was stabbed with six-shooter flames. There was the smell
of the clean, white dust in the air, but where all the surroundings
breathed of peace, omen died swiftly under the impact of the heavy
Colt bullets. McSween, his nerve vanished since the day before, too
shaken even to carry a weapon, crashed face downward in the street.
He got to his knees, half-crawled, half-staggered, to the corral-fence
and died there. The Kid's perpetual loose-lipped grin widened. He
was pulling trigger on Deputy Bob Beckwith. Beckwith reeled as
the bullet struck him; dropped in his tracks. Two Mexicans of the
Kid's company fell. A youngster, Harvey Norris, a new-comer in
that savage land, dropped almost across their bodies. The others
escaped.
Governor Axtell was now recalled. General Lew Wallace, of Ben
Hur fame, replaced him. He threw up his hands in impotence when
he had tried for a time to get to the bottom of this turmoil. The only
way to deal out pure justice in New Mexico, he remarked, would be
to hang every man in it. But he did invite The Kid to a conference,
where he promised him, if he would lay down his arms and stand trial
for murder, a full pardon. But The Kid shook his head.
R OD EO CLOTHES ARE ALSO "FAMOUS IN THE WEST"
12
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Cunningham, Eugene. Famous in the West, book, 1925~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth29618/m1/20/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.