February 7, 2024 • 36 mins
Series Premiere.
July 14, 1881. Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. In the inaugural episode of The Passage, the Ferryman of souls, voiced by Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, The Walking Dead), encounters a spirit as wild and untamed as the land he once roamed. Billy The Kid, voiced by Scott Haze (Child of God / Jurassic World Dominion), the most notorious outlaw of the American West, mounts his own spectral horse for his journey to what comes next. His eyes are tired but still burn with the fire of youth and rebellion.
Billy's tale begins in the dusty, sun-scorched plains of a nation finding its footing. America, in its own adolescence, is a land of unyielding contradictions—of sprawling beauty and brutal violence, of lofty ideals and base desires. It is within this crucible that Billy's story unfolds, a narrative etched into the very fabric of the American mythos.
As the Ferryman guides Billy along, he recounts his life, a journey marked by abandonment and blazing guns; fleeting loyalties, and a relentless pursuit by the forces of law and order. Through his eyes, listeners are transported to a time where justice is a precarious, often elusive ideal, and power is seized by those bold enough to claim it.
Was Billy the Kid a hero, a defender of the downtrodden, fighting against the corrupt and powerful elites that sought to tame the wild spirit of the West? Or was he a villain, a bloodthirsty outlaw emblematic of the lawlessness and moral decay that threatened to consume the frontier?
As they ride through the mists of time and truth, the Ferryman listens, and Billy's story, like the man himself, is a paradox—a tapestry of courage and cruelty, freedom and fate, woven into the tumultuous tapestry of a nation coming of age.
In this episode of The Passage, listeners will be compelled to confront these questions, to gaze into the abyss of America's soul and ponder the legacy of one of its most enigmatic figures. Join us for a journey into the heart of darkness and light, where history and legend collide, and the truth is as elusive as a ghost on the horizon. Written by Dan Bush and Nicholas Tecosky.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hm, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I regret to tell you that very many American lives
in love.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Was heard to shouts from the car. He's dead. Whether
he referred to president or four hours.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
People must get up and go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
If I am here in the in between, to collect
their spirits and carry them to what comes next.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This road is not on any map.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
It spanned the thresholds between their most forbidden desires and
their greatest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All I ask for.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives
and the great temporary that is the land we're living.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
These are their stories.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
This is.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
The passage.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
This is a wasteland, the end of the line. Out here,
the old.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Ways are already dead, yet the new ways are not
yet born. I can still smell the gunpowder from the
Civil War wafting from the east. It came in on
(02:34):
the clothes of the men who traveled west. It came
on their breath, the blood still.
Speaker 7 (02:42):
Caked onto their nails, who death behind their eyes and
their souls disfigured by slaughter.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
They brought their horror stories with them by horse and wagon,
and now a railway that slithers ever westward like the cold,
hungry snake. Ahead of the railroad, they summon the same
war machine, once aimed at each other. With it, they
(03:17):
decimated the ancient nations that are here, so they can
breed cattle until the bloody soil they've stolen. Some have
made this journey to find their fortunes, others to escape
(03:38):
their past, their identity shifting with each mile they travel
farther west, And so this place is barely held together
by a delicate balance between hope and fear, power and justice.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
The cabin.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Weirly, but our traveling companion will be out in a moment.
McCarty Henry McCarty born out of grittin desperation and the
New York slums, but forged into something of a folk
hero out here in the wild West, where the line
(04:23):
betwixt the blessed and the damned is so thin as
to be transparent. Orphaned as a young man, his is
the story of a caged animal who became an escape artist,
a survivor who became a killer, who became a legend.
(04:43):
Little Henry transformed himself into Billy Bonnie, and then the
headlines transformed him into Billy the Kid. It's July fourteenth,
eighteen eighty one, Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory, and our
next passenger, the most notorious figure in American folklore, is about.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
To die.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
That uh, the horses for me?
Speaker 5 (06:01):
I reckon?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Goddamn.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Where are we headed?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, that's to be determined by what by you?
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Huh, Well, what's the arrangement? Ain't you gonna shock them
or nothing? I expect I want to steal this horse
and pull a fob off.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Well, you're welcome to try. I'm here to provide you
passage to the next place.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
What's the price?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
The truth?
Speaker 4 (06:44):
And just what the hell does that meant to mean?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
The truth? Truth is?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
I'm here because I got shot. How about that?
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Some bitch finally did it? Oh, Garrett finally got the
jump on me. And that's that And that's fine. Took
him long enough. Now he gets to be famous. Good
luck to him. It ain't worth much, truth is? I
(07:18):
think I let him. I let him because I'm tired
tired of trying to be something, something else, something other
than that fairy tale.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
They made me out to be an outlaw.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Sure I am that for the bloodthirsty murder ambassard I
said they made me out in their papers, say I
killed twenty one men. Now, I don't blaming them for
righting me as they have. I don't know if anyone
believe anything good to me anyway, but there is good.
There is good in me standing up to the corrupt
and greedy bastards. I think they got a god giving
(07:54):
right to profit off of everything under the sun. Sure
I'm a villain to some. I'm gonna hear others. Like
those songs they sing down in Mexico, I reckon it
all comes down to what side you're on and who's
winning the war. What you get is what you see.
(08:14):
The only story I need to hear is your own.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
There were two men that made me.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
First man left the hallow my gut, a great hunger,
a hatred that can never be satisfied. The second man
let the hall of my heart like a wound that
won't heal. The first disappeared, and yet I couldn't get
rid of them. The second I tried to hold onto,
(08:51):
but he slipped through my fingers like the blood that
floated from the back of his skull the day he died.
Each had equal hand in making me what I am.
As soon as I was born, Daddy left that right there.
Sets of course, Mama did her best to raise me,
(09:11):
kept me in line. Put those winters in New York.
No heat in the factory, no heat in the room.
The shit piled up in the courtyards outside. The swine
wronged freely, and the dead horses were left to rod.
We got out somehow and came west. While I was
still small. It warn't much better than never enough food
(09:34):
for us. I used to crank the pump and fill
my gut with water to fool myself that I was fed.
Mama scrapped, Yeah, she used to slipped me the best
bits of everything. Need the scraps for herself. But no
one could sustain themselves in regard for another, not forever.
(09:57):
Her hands were almost skeleton. She could barely hold the
knitt needle, couldn't grab through the back of the stitch
with her forefinger and her thumb, so she used her teeth.
That's why the sweater she made had stains from the
blood and biles she was coughing up. God, she was
so frail, so frail. There then gone pale, but she
(10:25):
still smile wide. She managed to finish the sweater before
she died, something that sheltered me against all the cold
and all the dark in the world. Yeah, well it didn't.
Speaker 8 (10:42):
When she died, I made a promise to myself that
I find my father. It was him, after all, who
said us toward room. No man could call himself a
Christian leave behind a family to fit for themselves. Mama
worked her fingers to the bone to keep bust alive.
She worked so hard to killed her in then now
(11:04):
I am to make him pay that man who was
my father, full price, and so I set tracking him down.
He didn't take me long once I got back to
New York. He was a famous drunk my father, so
I canvassed the saloons. About a week into it. I
said him a dirty place down by five points, with
(11:26):
the hours from then to drink. Now, I never laid
eyes on the man, but I recognized him immediately.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
I called out Pat McCarty, and he turned to me,
blarry eyed and red faced, all these while markings of
an inveterate drunkeness across his face.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
It was a moment of.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Confusion in his water eyes. But the recognition came quick enough.
Must have seen hisself and me, must have been like
looking in the mirror that erased all the hard years
from his face. Henry, he said, in my Christian name.
I didn't give no reply. I just trained my gun
(12:04):
at him. Funny thing happened. Then. I expected him to
cry out, to call God for mercy to beg for
his life, but instead, instead he smiled. He smiled like
he was pleased that I found him, like keeping waiting
(12:26):
for it. And I finally arrived, and I felt my
finger on the cold trigger, and.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
I hesitated.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
I hesitated, and no sooner did his smile drain from
his face. His mustache sank towards the floor. Shame, I
didn't think so, he said, because you're not a man. No,
you a soft little run a sponger. I sure snuff
(12:59):
you out to day he was born, you and your
squealing pig brother, the last miserable maccarti bloodline. He said,
I could have rided the world of our whole wretch
McCarty a lot for good. Now I hesitated too, because
I'm not a man, neither fucking chain, he said.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
The next thing.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
I sees blood, blood splotted, the low whiskey bottles, and
the pale faces in the assemblation blud spilling into the
floor like this. I shot him down right in his chest,
right where his heart was rumored to be. And then
he smiled again, whispered his dying words, that's a good lad.
(13:44):
I looked at the smoke and gun in my hand
didn't feel like my own, like I was someone else's
marrying that. And when Daddy dropped, my gaze riched palm
my reflection in the mirror behind him, but I had
no recognition of it, for I've never seen myself smiling
before the same cruel smile as my daddy, and contrared
(14:11):
them storybooks. The first life I took was indeed my daddy's.
I was prepared to face the consequences too. I was
reaised to trial. God is my witness, tell the truth
and accept my penalty. Hell, I wanted them to come
arrest me. I waited, I waited and waited. Nothing happened
(14:32):
less than nothing. Nobody cared. Nobody came from me, not
the law, not nobody, and I realized it was all
a gag. Really, the law, the cords, and no jail
could ever hold me after that, and I never told
nobody neither. I guess you could say that I wandered
(14:54):
after that, although it be alive, I called it wandering aimless.
See avenging my mother or my father didn't exactly release
me from the rage that had festered since she withered away.
Matter of fact, it grew like the thistle weed and
(15:16):
that cruise smile I inherd. It became a permanent fixture. See.
Even though I shot my own man Dad, I couldn't
shake him. Made my way to Graham County, Arizona. I
didn't go into the canteen with the intention of killing,
(15:36):
but Windy Cahills had it coming. Sure. Sure I hated
the man. He fit me for shackles once after I
was caught for stealing horses. It was a big dum
some bitch for sure. I ain't gonna rough me up
one too many times. He was sorrow on me ever
since I took a week's worth of payoffer in a
poker game. So when I watched into Atkins and called
his bluff again, he went red, he's there, call me filthy,
(16:03):
call me in urchin. And I tried to stick on.
I did he says, I ain't got no wonder this money.
So I called him a big dumb sum bitch, and
he came at me fast. Then he was the town
of Blacksmith, and his hands were stick and burned and
heavy his sledgehamers. Then he threw me to the ground,
(16:25):
set out to beat me like a railroad spike. Then
he says, bet your dead mama would be ashamed of
what her boy turned out like.
Speaker 6 (16:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Then it happened. His face seemed to shift to transform.
He smiled at me, and the smile grew and grew
until it seemed to reach all the way to his ears,
too many big black, yellow teeth showing he was an
infernal smile, the smile of the devil has else. It
(17:02):
was my daddy's smile. I didn't even feel the gun
in my hand, didn't even hear the discharge. Wendy kele
top of it on me, bleeding out. I looked in
his dying eyes, and his face was his own again,
all screwed up in pain. But that's when I heard
(17:24):
the voice low on my ear, that's a good lot.
Through his lips came spurts of blood and whispered, please
for mercy should I. I wasn't gonna hurt him no more.
I took the first horse I saw on roe let Hell,
but I couldn't escape it. Every time I had the
(17:46):
thought to play it straight, take my arnings and try
to be honest. Out of hear his voice whisper in
my ear.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
That's a good lot.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
The gun smoked, the blood flowed, and no law could
stop me. What at first was leaving to survive, soon
lived to my second killing and my fifth, and soon
I quit trying. I gave myself over the devil in mate.
Speaker 9 (18:21):
But that was that, just yonder and the fog up
there seems seems park slash part shoutout.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Well all those people, uh yeah, not anymore, Dear Lord,
is that windy? And who's standing there with that? That
tall fellow with black hair? Is that Baker? That's Baker
and Morton and Sheriff Brady. Jesus Christ, not mighty, What
(18:59):
a pathetic lord? Why are they just standing there like that?
For what?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
You sorry fucker's one out here?
Speaker 6 (19:09):
Huh what you're waiting for?
Speaker 4 (19:12):
But to hell, you sons of bitches.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
All you get, bastards, You can go to hell shop
those bastards Of all the men I killed, those bastards
had are coming the most. Mister Tunstall was the second
(19:35):
man who made me. John Tunstall, he was my friend.
That man took me in from the wilderness. I was
like a fairal cat, beating on the carry on and
the scraps of the world. It goes to my father
haunted me through the day and torment me in my sleep,
to missus tunstle, lady's hands on my shoulder. Hell hot
(19:56):
stole the man's horses.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
What do you do?
Speaker 5 (19:58):
Man gave me an honest job on it. This cattle
ranch paid me for my first honest day's work. He
taught me reading words, and showed me how to hold
a fork of the knife, and bided me to sit
in his kitchen table to suck. It sounds funny to say,
consider in mild reputation, but he civilized me, tamed me.
(20:20):
John was the second man who bade me. The further
I got into John Tonstall's life, the quieter my father's
voice was, except at night. But the thing is he
no longer tormented me in my sleep. That face of
his no longer war that no one smiled with every
sleep After a hard day's honest work. His smile faded more.
(20:43):
I was almost free of him, and by and by
my reflection got rearranged too. My face softened, and by
and by my cruel smile left me, until one day
I recognized myself again. But he couldn't last. John Tounster
was a good man, hard working dc that makes a
(21:06):
man vulnerable. John Tunstall's decency flew in the face all
Lawrence Murphy and his pet snake James Doling. They on
the biggest ranch in all the territories. For years. They
tried to force John to sell his land, but Joab
wouldn't have it. So Murphy, being the fact god he is,
decided to make life as miserable as possible for mister Tunstle.
(21:28):
His men got the mischief, tearing down fences, setting the
barn of light. I told mister Tunstle, we gonna have
to sort him out the hard way, but he wouldn't
have any of it, he said, they settled in the
civilized manner. It happened on the big cattle drive. We
was waiting outside the perimeter, me and mister Tunstle on
(21:48):
the others and back of Lincoln. Some's gone down.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Me and the others rode out ahead to look for dinner.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And that's when they rolled up on John Murphy's and Dolen's,
man Baker and Morton and the rest. I watched him
from up on the ridge. I just I just couldn't
get there in time to save him. Oh I saw
(22:22):
mphos men leaving the cloud of dust chaff. Brady hisself
a mono.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
It was Jesse Evans.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
She shot John down like a dog, executed him. He's
back of the head. When I got to Johnny, he
was somehow still alive now though it hadn't gone through.
Musta got stuck in his skull. I cradled his head,
and the blood brushed out through the hole on my fingers.
(22:49):
He looked at me, confused, like he didn't know me
at first, but then he smiled sort of dreamy like,
and said, I see again, Bill. And then he was gone.
And then the other voice came to me. I could
hear it whispering in my ear, Daddy telling me to
(23:13):
go after those men to shoot him down. I wasn't
gonna listen. I was gonna do this the civilized way.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So I went to Judge Wilson.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
Took some persuading, but he finally constituted me, Me and
the other regulators. We was deputized by the Lincoln County
Justice of the Peace. They gave us warrants and such.
So I went out after Sheriff Brady and his posse.
We rounded up Baker and more him down by black
Water Creek. I told him he's under arrest, and they laughed.
I tried to do right despite that, I swear to
(23:46):
God I did. I heard john voice telling me I
was a different than the others. But Daddy's voice was
in my head louder now. And now I was losing
control of my hands again, and the marionette feeling was
back in my limbs, like I was possessed, I said.
I shook it off. I was helping to do civilized things. See,
I repeated myself. Sit days all under rest.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
This time.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
They did the disservice of ignoring me flat out, like
I was nothing. Baker started talking about what he was
gonna do with Tunster's laying. Said they all gonna get
paid handsomely for their dedication. Said hell, maybe Murphy would
even throw him Miss Tunster as a bonus prize. I
told him best locked, they GIWs what you can do,
(24:31):
by the kid. Not a goddamn thing, they said, I
don't call what happened after that. I remember hearing Daddy's laugh,
though his drunken, cruel laugh, and as soon as I
heard it, I real lost. I realized the laugh was
(24:52):
coming from my own throat. Next thing I know, I'm
standing over the bodies of Baker Morton, face down in
the creek, their blood clouding in the water, my pistol
(25:14):
smoking in my hand. But he's only supposed to rest 'em.
But the regulators knew just as well. They knew there
weren't gonna be no justice. Turning Nantussles killers and expecting
justice from the very government that ordered his death.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Made no goddamn sense.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Murphy had all them some bitches in his pocket, the governor,
attorney general, hell, he of the entire United States government.
So I reckon I'd done it myself justice. But it
don't matter.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Rich Man can kill a thousand men right out in
the open, a gun in his hand, and smile.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
On his face a lie. I won't do nothing to
hold him back, but I knew that sort of treatment
wouldn't come to a wildcat like me. It don't matter anyhow,
don't matter that what I'd done was called for, and
we got pready after that, runned him down in the streets.
(26:13):
And after that they came for me, tried to smoke me,
ab nearly set me on fire. They couldn't get me
long I dodged they bullets, Oh yes, they jails couldn't
hold me neither. But with every function in y'r living,
it's spent just trying to keep living. It grinds you down,
(26:35):
showing off. I became a slave again to my father
every turn. If there was a choice to do right,
to do violence, I chose the path of violence, and
he go to me home. Always in my ear, that's
a good lot if you was in my way.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Sure, shit weren't for long.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Then I went on steven and killing, deeving and killing
til I felt hollowed out again. Then papers, the papers
say I represent everything that's wrong with the world out there.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Oh my eye.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I may not be law biden, But what good is
the law when it's on the purpose it's to faten
the hogs while the rest are no, no, no, all.
My killing, every soul I killed was done above board.
I never pulled my gun or no innocent sauce. Oo
woo woo woo woo. Who's that there? I pad another spirit?
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Yeah, right, I pad, he.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Said, Jesus, it's Belle, deputy Jim's bell. No, no, no, no,
see that ain't fair. No no, no, no, no, that
ain't fair. No.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I didn't aim to kill him.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
You know they was gonna hang me.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
I had no choice.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
He was.
Speaker 10 (27:57):
He was the only thing in my way.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
It was either him or me.
Speaker 10 (28:03):
I told you not to do it, Belle. I told
you if you drew on me, I'd have to kill you.
You should not let your guard down any damn food
to check them shackles. When I come out the shitter
and your gun was right there, boy, right there, sitting here,
shining New Holston.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
My hands was.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Free, bell free. I told you, you know, really all
comes down. You should have left me alone to go
to hell on my own bell. That ain't on me.
You gota acknowledge the corner on that.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
You see what your sail? You'll see, Belle, Belle, Hey, Belle,
where'd he go? Way these spirits appear and disappear his
unsettling friends, Poor old Belle. You know you know a
(28:55):
second before I squeezed as a trigger. I saw a
look in his eye. There was the look of a
frightened little boy. I've often wondered if perhaps that's the
look I had when Tunster put his hand on my shoulder,
A frying boy. He only wanted to belong to some
bigger than himself. Looky for me. I met Tunstall and
(29:20):
I'm looking for Belle. That he met me, the fight
went out of me. After that I got shot myself.
The truth is I spotted Sheriff Garrett riding from across
the valley to the ranch cabin where I was hold up,
(29:42):
and when I seen him coming first thing, I felt relief,
And for the first time since John Tunstall died, I
couldn't hear Daddy's voice in my head no more.
Speaker 7 (29:58):
He was.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
It was just quiet, and for the first time I
saw clear that I had a choice. Well, well, I
guess you know.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
The rest.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
All the legends, the stories about me, something wake me
out to be a hero or some evillain, or you
could argue I was only are trying to be my
true self, to find out who I was, who I
was underneath it all. And for a little while with
(30:36):
John Tunstall, I had that.
Speaker 6 (30:43):
I had that.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Truth is, there were two versions of myself, and the
reaction I took was like a vote from one to
the other. The truth is, I seen Gary coming. I
knew it was just a long shadow on him.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
That door.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Truth is, I had to jump on it, not the
other way around. But like I said, every action we
take in our life is a vote, the vote for
who we wish to be. Right. Then I had the
chance to cast one more about it. So I lay
(31:23):
my gun down. I reckon. That's everything I have to
say on the matter.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
We've arrived.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Oh oh yeah, So.
Speaker 10 (31:42):
I guess.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
I guess that door there in the rock, I guess
it leads to ye wherever I'm headed? Where am I headed? Yeah, well,
it's not my place to know. My job is done.
See only you can walk through that door, Henry, Henry.
(32:06):
Ain't nobody that's called me that in a long time. Well,
I guess this is where we part ways. So it
is thank you for your story. Oh yeah, thanks for
letting me be in your ear. So I just I
just opened it and walked through. Well, all right, it's
(32:37):
you hello again.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
William H.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Bonnie was born at a pivotal moment in his nation's history.
And like his country, he was stranded in a oh
wasteland between identities, caught in a struggle to be whole
and driven by a longing for a purpose in a
new land. And so there is some of Billy the
(33:24):
Kid in every American, each displaced from their ancestral past,
and each still searching for a new identity, a renewed
sense of belonging, a family, a country. Woven into the
fabric of the American psyche, is that same hope and
(33:48):
the same.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Battle for equality and justice.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, Billy was a flexible container for the imagination of
this land to fill with whatever it needed. But beneath
it all, yeah, he was just a lost boy, a
mere product of the lawlessness of the era. No Robin Hood,
no Custer. He's just a kid torn between the slant
(34:17):
of two very different men, Just a boy looking for
a father and set adrift in the wild West to
cope with his devils the best that he could. His
passage now complete.
Speaker 11 (34:42):
The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
features Scott Hayes as Billy the Kit. Written by Dan
Bush and Nicholas Dakowski, our executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski,
Matthew Frederick and Alexander Williams. First assistant director, script supervisor
and production coordinator Sarah Klin. Music by Ben Lovett, additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and
(35:06):
Meg Mormon. Editing and sound designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue
editing and sound mixing by Juan Campos. Additional sound editing
by Racket Sound. Our supervising producer is Josh Than. Created
by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski. Produced by Dan Bush.
The Passage is a production of iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
Hm, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I regret to tell you that very many American lives
in love.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Was heard to shouts from the car. He's dead. Whether
he referred to president or four hours.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
People must get up and go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
If I am here in the in between, to collect
their spirits and carry them to what comes next.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This road is not on any map.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
It spanned the thresholds between their most forbidden desires and
their greatest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All I ask for.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives
and the great temporary that is the land we're living.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
These are their stories.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
This is.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
The passage.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
This is a wasteland, the end of the line. Out here,
the old.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Ways are already dead, yet the new ways are not
yet born. I can still smell the gunpowder from the
Civil War wafting from the east. It came in on
(02:34):
the clothes of the men who traveled west. It came
on their breath, the blood still.
Speaker 7 (02:42):
Caked onto their nails, who death behind their eyes and
their souls disfigured by slaughter.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
They brought their horror stories with them by horse and wagon,
and now a railway that slithers ever westward like the cold,
hungry snake. Ahead of the railroad, they summon the same
war machine, once aimed at each other. With it, they
(03:17):
decimated the ancient nations that are here, so they can
breed cattle until the bloody soil they've stolen. Some have
made this journey to find their fortunes, others to escape
(03:38):
their past, their identity shifting with each mile they travel
farther west, And so this place is barely held together
by a delicate balance between hope and fear, power and justice.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
The cabin.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Weirly, but our traveling companion will be out in a moment.
McCarty Henry McCarty born out of grittin desperation and the
New York slums, but forged into something of a folk
hero out here in the wild West, where the line
(04:23):
betwixt the blessed and the damned is so thin as
to be transparent. Orphaned as a young man, his is
the story of a caged animal who became an escape artist,
a survivor who became a killer, who became a legend.
(04:43):
Little Henry transformed himself into Billy Bonnie, and then the
headlines transformed him into Billy the Kid. It's July fourteenth,
eighteen eighty one, Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory, and our
next passenger, the most notorious figure in American folklore, is about.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
To die.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
That uh, the horses for me?
Speaker 5 (06:01):
I reckon?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Goddamn.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Where are we headed?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, that's to be determined by what by you?
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Huh, Well, what's the arrangement? Ain't you gonna shock them
or nothing? I expect I want to steal this horse
and pull a fob off.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Well, you're welcome to try. I'm here to provide you
passage to the next place.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
What's the price?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
The truth?
Speaker 4 (06:44):
And just what the hell does that meant to mean?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
The truth? Truth is?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
I'm here because I got shot. How about that?
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Some bitch finally did it? Oh, Garrett finally got the
jump on me. And that's that And that's fine. Took
him long enough. Now he gets to be famous. Good
luck to him. It ain't worth much, truth is? I
(07:18):
think I let him. I let him because I'm tired
tired of trying to be something, something else, something other
than that fairy tale.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
They made me out to be an outlaw.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Sure I am that for the bloodthirsty murder ambassard I
said they made me out in their papers, say I
killed twenty one men. Now, I don't blaming them for
righting me as they have. I don't know if anyone
believe anything good to me anyway, but there is good.
There is good in me standing up to the corrupt
and greedy bastards. I think they got a god giving
(07:54):
right to profit off of everything under the sun. Sure
I'm a villain to some. I'm gonna hear others. Like
those songs they sing down in Mexico, I reckon it
all comes down to what side you're on and who's
winning the war. What you get is what you see.
(08:14):
The only story I need to hear is your own.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
There were two men that made me.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
First man left the hallow my gut, a great hunger,
a hatred that can never be satisfied. The second man
let the hall of my heart like a wound that
won't heal. The first disappeared, and yet I couldn't get
rid of them. The second I tried to hold onto,
(08:51):
but he slipped through my fingers like the blood that
floated from the back of his skull the day he died.
Each had equal hand in making me what I am.
As soon as I was born, Daddy left that right there.
Sets of course, Mama did her best to raise me,
(09:11):
kept me in line. Put those winters in New York.
No heat in the factory, no heat in the room.
The shit piled up in the courtyards outside. The swine
wronged freely, and the dead horses were left to rod.
We got out somehow and came west. While I was
still small. It warn't much better than never enough food
(09:34):
for us. I used to crank the pump and fill
my gut with water to fool myself that I was fed.
Mama scrapped, Yeah, she used to slipped me the best
bits of everything. Need the scraps for herself. But no
one could sustain themselves in regard for another, not forever.
(09:57):
Her hands were almost skeleton. She could barely hold the
knitt needle, couldn't grab through the back of the stitch
with her forefinger and her thumb, so she used her teeth.
That's why the sweater she made had stains from the
blood and biles she was coughing up. God, she was
so frail, so frail. There then gone pale, but she
(10:25):
still smile wide. She managed to finish the sweater before
she died, something that sheltered me against all the cold
and all the dark in the world. Yeah, well it didn't.
Speaker 8 (10:42):
When she died, I made a promise to myself that
I find my father. It was him, after all, who
said us toward room. No man could call himself a
Christian leave behind a family to fit for themselves. Mama
worked her fingers to the bone to keep bust alive.
She worked so hard to killed her in then now
(11:04):
I am to make him pay that man who was
my father, full price, and so I set tracking him down.
He didn't take me long once I got back to
New York. He was a famous drunk my father, so
I canvassed the saloons. About a week into it. I
said him a dirty place down by five points, with
(11:26):
the hours from then to drink. Now, I never laid
eyes on the man, but I recognized him immediately.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
I called out Pat McCarty, and he turned to me,
blarry eyed and red faced, all these while markings of
an inveterate drunkeness across his face.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
It was a moment of.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Confusion in his water eyes. But the recognition came quick enough.
Must have seen hisself and me, must have been like
looking in the mirror that erased all the hard years
from his face. Henry, he said, in my Christian name.
I didn't give no reply. I just trained my gun
(12:04):
at him. Funny thing happened. Then. I expected him to
cry out, to call God for mercy to beg for
his life, but instead, instead he smiled. He smiled like
he was pleased that I found him, like keeping waiting
(12:26):
for it. And I finally arrived, and I felt my
finger on the cold trigger, and.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
I hesitated.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
I hesitated, and no sooner did his smile drain from
his face. His mustache sank towards the floor. Shame, I
didn't think so, he said, because you're not a man. No,
you a soft little run a sponger. I sure snuff
(12:59):
you out to day he was born, you and your
squealing pig brother, the last miserable maccarti bloodline. He said,
I could have rided the world of our whole wretch
McCarty a lot for good. Now I hesitated too, because
I'm not a man, neither fucking chain, he said.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
The next thing.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
I sees blood, blood splotted, the low whiskey bottles, and
the pale faces in the assemblation blud spilling into the
floor like this. I shot him down right in his chest,
right where his heart was rumored to be. And then
he smiled again, whispered his dying words, that's a good lad.
(13:44):
I looked at the smoke and gun in my hand
didn't feel like my own, like I was someone else's
marrying that. And when Daddy dropped, my gaze riched palm
my reflection in the mirror behind him, but I had
no recognition of it, for I've never seen myself smiling
before the same cruel smile as my daddy, and contrared
(14:11):
them storybooks. The first life I took was indeed my daddy's.
I was prepared to face the consequences too. I was
reaised to trial. God is my witness, tell the truth
and accept my penalty. Hell, I wanted them to come
arrest me. I waited, I waited and waited. Nothing happened
(14:32):
less than nothing. Nobody cared. Nobody came from me, not
the law, not nobody, and I realized it was all
a gag. Really, the law, the cords, and no jail
could ever hold me after that, and I never told
nobody neither. I guess you could say that I wandered
(14:54):
after that, although it be alive, I called it wandering aimless.
See avenging my mother or my father didn't exactly release
me from the rage that had festered since she withered away.
Matter of fact, it grew like the thistle weed and
(15:16):
that cruise smile I inherd. It became a permanent fixture. See.
Even though I shot my own man Dad, I couldn't
shake him. Made my way to Graham County, Arizona. I
didn't go into the canteen with the intention of killing,
(15:36):
but Windy Cahills had it coming. Sure. Sure I hated
the man. He fit me for shackles once after I
was caught for stealing horses. It was a big dum
some bitch for sure. I ain't gonna rough me up
one too many times. He was sorrow on me ever
since I took a week's worth of payoffer in a
poker game. So when I watched into Atkins and called
his bluff again, he went red, he's there, call me filthy,
(16:03):
call me in urchin. And I tried to stick on.
I did he says, I ain't got no wonder this money.
So I called him a big dumb sum bitch, and
he came at me fast. Then he was the town
of Blacksmith, and his hands were stick and burned and
heavy his sledgehamers. Then he threw me to the ground,
(16:25):
set out to beat me like a railroad spike. Then
he says, bet your dead mama would be ashamed of
what her boy turned out like.
Speaker 6 (16:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Then it happened. His face seemed to shift to transform.
He smiled at me, and the smile grew and grew
until it seemed to reach all the way to his ears,
too many big black, yellow teeth showing he was an
infernal smile, the smile of the devil has else. It
(17:02):
was my daddy's smile. I didn't even feel the gun
in my hand, didn't even hear the discharge. Wendy kele
top of it on me, bleeding out. I looked in
his dying eyes, and his face was his own again,
all screwed up in pain. But that's when I heard
(17:24):
the voice low on my ear, that's a good lot.
Through his lips came spurts of blood and whispered, please
for mercy should I. I wasn't gonna hurt him no more.
I took the first horse I saw on roe let Hell,
but I couldn't escape it. Every time I had the
(17:46):
thought to play it straight, take my arnings and try
to be honest. Out of hear his voice whisper in
my ear.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
That's a good lot.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
The gun smoked, the blood flowed, and no law could
stop me. What at first was leaving to survive, soon
lived to my second killing and my fifth, and soon
I quit trying. I gave myself over the devil in mate.
Speaker 9 (18:21):
But that was that, just yonder and the fog up
there seems seems park slash part shoutout.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Well all those people, uh yeah, not anymore, Dear Lord,
is that windy? And who's standing there with that? That
tall fellow with black hair? Is that Baker? That's Baker
and Morton and Sheriff Brady. Jesus Christ, not mighty, What
(18:59):
a pathetic lord? Why are they just standing there like that?
For what?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
You sorry fucker's one out here?
Speaker 6 (19:09):
Huh what you're waiting for?
Speaker 4 (19:12):
But to hell, you sons of bitches.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
All you get, bastards, You can go to hell shop
those bastards Of all the men I killed, those bastards
had are coming the most. Mister Tunstall was the second
(19:35):
man who made me. John Tunstall, he was my friend.
That man took me in from the wilderness. I was
like a fairal cat, beating on the carry on and
the scraps of the world. It goes to my father
haunted me through the day and torment me in my sleep,
to missus tunstle, lady's hands on my shoulder. Hell hot
(19:56):
stole the man's horses.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
What do you do?
Speaker 5 (19:58):
Man gave me an honest job on it. This cattle
ranch paid me for my first honest day's work. He
taught me reading words, and showed me how to hold
a fork of the knife, and bided me to sit
in his kitchen table to suck. It sounds funny to say,
consider in mild reputation, but he civilized me, tamed me.
(20:20):
John was the second man who bade me. The further
I got into John Tonstall's life, the quieter my father's
voice was, except at night. But the thing is he
no longer tormented me in my sleep. That face of
his no longer war that no one smiled with every
sleep After a hard day's honest work. His smile faded more.
(20:43):
I was almost free of him, and by and by
my reflection got rearranged too. My face softened, and by
and by my cruel smile left me, until one day
I recognized myself again. But he couldn't last. John Tounster
was a good man, hard working dc that makes a
(21:06):
man vulnerable. John Tunstall's decency flew in the face all
Lawrence Murphy and his pet snake James Doling. They on
the biggest ranch in all the territories. For years. They
tried to force John to sell his land, but Joab
wouldn't have it. So Murphy, being the fact god he is,
decided to make life as miserable as possible for mister Tunstle.
(21:28):
His men got the mischief, tearing down fences, setting the
barn of light. I told mister Tunstle, we gonna have
to sort him out the hard way, but he wouldn't
have any of it, he said, they settled in the
civilized manner. It happened on the big cattle drive. We
was waiting outside the perimeter, me and mister Tunstle on
(21:48):
the others and back of Lincoln. Some's gone down.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Me and the others rode out ahead to look for dinner.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And that's when they rolled up on John Murphy's and Dolen's,
man Baker and Morton and the rest. I watched him
from up on the ridge. I just I just couldn't
get there in time to save him. Oh I saw
(22:22):
mphos men leaving the cloud of dust chaff. Brady hisself
a mono.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
It was Jesse Evans.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
She shot John down like a dog, executed him. He's
back of the head. When I got to Johnny, he
was somehow still alive now though it hadn't gone through.
Musta got stuck in his skull. I cradled his head,
and the blood brushed out through the hole on my fingers.
(22:49):
He looked at me, confused, like he didn't know me
at first, but then he smiled sort of dreamy like,
and said, I see again, Bill. And then he was gone.
And then the other voice came to me. I could
hear it whispering in my ear, Daddy telling me to
(23:13):
go after those men to shoot him down. I wasn't
gonna listen. I was gonna do this the civilized way.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So I went to Judge Wilson.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
Took some persuading, but he finally constituted me, Me and
the other regulators. We was deputized by the Lincoln County
Justice of the Peace. They gave us warrants and such.
So I went out after Sheriff Brady and his posse.
We rounded up Baker and more him down by black
Water Creek. I told him he's under arrest, and they laughed.
I tried to do right despite that, I swear to
(23:46):
God I did. I heard john voice telling me I
was a different than the others. But Daddy's voice was
in my head louder now. And now I was losing
control of my hands again, and the marionette feeling was
back in my limbs, like I was possessed, I said.
I shook it off. I was helping to do civilized things. See,
I repeated myself. Sit days all under rest.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
This time.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
They did the disservice of ignoring me flat out, like
I was nothing. Baker started talking about what he was
gonna do with Tunster's laying. Said they all gonna get
paid handsomely for their dedication. Said hell, maybe Murphy would
even throw him Miss Tunster as a bonus prize. I
told him best locked, they GIWs what you can do,
(24:31):
by the kid. Not a goddamn thing, they said, I
don't call what happened after that. I remember hearing Daddy's laugh,
though his drunken, cruel laugh, and as soon as I
heard it, I real lost. I realized the laugh was
(24:52):
coming from my own throat. Next thing I know, I'm
standing over the bodies of Baker Morton, face down in
the creek, their blood clouding in the water, my pistol
(25:14):
smoking in my hand. But he's only supposed to rest 'em.
But the regulators knew just as well. They knew there
weren't gonna be no justice. Turning Nantussles killers and expecting
justice from the very government that ordered his death.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Made no goddamn sense.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Murphy had all them some bitches in his pocket, the governor,
attorney general, hell, he of the entire United States government.
So I reckon I'd done it myself justice. But it
don't matter.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Rich Man can kill a thousand men right out in
the open, a gun in his hand, and smile.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
On his face a lie. I won't do nothing to
hold him back, but I knew that sort of treatment
wouldn't come to a wildcat like me. It don't matter anyhow,
don't matter that what I'd done was called for, and
we got pready after that, runned him down in the streets.
(26:13):
And after that they came for me, tried to smoke me,
ab nearly set me on fire. They couldn't get me
long I dodged they bullets, Oh yes, they jails couldn't
hold me neither. But with every function in y'r living,
it's spent just trying to keep living. It grinds you down,
(26:35):
showing off. I became a slave again to my father
every turn. If there was a choice to do right,
to do violence, I chose the path of violence, and
he go to me home. Always in my ear, that's
a good lot if you was in my way.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Sure, shit weren't for long.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Then I went on steven and killing, deeving and killing
til I felt hollowed out again. Then papers, the papers
say I represent everything that's wrong with the world out there.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Oh my eye.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I may not be law biden, But what good is
the law when it's on the purpose it's to faten
the hogs while the rest are no, no, no, all.
My killing, every soul I killed was done above board.
I never pulled my gun or no innocent sauce. Oo
woo woo woo woo. Who's that there? I pad another spirit?
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Yeah, right, I pad, he.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Said, Jesus, it's Belle, deputy Jim's bell. No, no, no, no,
see that ain't fair. No no, no, no, no, that
ain't fair. No.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I didn't aim to kill him.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
You know they was gonna hang me.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
I had no choice.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
He was.
Speaker 10 (27:57):
He was the only thing in my way.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
It was either him or me.
Speaker 10 (28:03):
I told you not to do it, Belle. I told
you if you drew on me, I'd have to kill you.
You should not let your guard down any damn food
to check them shackles. When I come out the shitter
and your gun was right there, boy, right there, sitting here,
shining New Holston.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
My hands was.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Free, bell free. I told you, you know, really all
comes down. You should have left me alone to go
to hell on my own bell. That ain't on me.
You gota acknowledge the corner on that.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
You see what your sail? You'll see, Belle, Belle, Hey, Belle,
where'd he go? Way these spirits appear and disappear his
unsettling friends, Poor old Belle. You know you know a
(28:55):
second before I squeezed as a trigger. I saw a
look in his eye. There was the look of a
frightened little boy. I've often wondered if perhaps that's the
look I had when Tunster put his hand on my shoulder,
A frying boy. He only wanted to belong to some
bigger than himself. Looky for me. I met Tunstall and
(29:20):
I'm looking for Belle. That he met me, the fight
went out of me. After that I got shot myself.
The truth is I spotted Sheriff Garrett riding from across
the valley to the ranch cabin where I was hold up,
(29:42):
and when I seen him coming first thing, I felt relief,
And for the first time since John Tunstall died, I
couldn't hear Daddy's voice in my head no more.
Speaker 7 (29:58):
He was.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
It was just quiet, and for the first time I
saw clear that I had a choice. Well, well, I
guess you know.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
The rest.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
All the legends, the stories about me, something wake me
out to be a hero or some evillain, or you
could argue I was only are trying to be my
true self, to find out who I was, who I
was underneath it all. And for a little while with
(30:36):
John Tunstall, I had that.
Speaker 6 (30:43):
I had that.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Truth is, there were two versions of myself, and the
reaction I took was like a vote from one to
the other. The truth is, I seen Gary coming. I
knew it was just a long shadow on him.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
That door.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Truth is, I had to jump on it, not the
other way around. But like I said, every action we
take in our life is a vote, the vote for
who we wish to be. Right. Then I had the
chance to cast one more about it. So I lay
(31:23):
my gun down. I reckon. That's everything I have to
say on the matter.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
We've arrived.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Oh oh yeah, So.
Speaker 10 (31:42):
I guess.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
I guess that door there in the rock, I guess
it leads to ye wherever I'm headed? Where am I headed? Yeah, well,
it's not my place to know. My job is done.
See only you can walk through that door, Henry, Henry.
(32:06):
Ain't nobody that's called me that in a long time. Well,
I guess this is where we part ways. So it
is thank you for your story. Oh yeah, thanks for
letting me be in your ear. So I just I
just opened it and walked through. Well, all right, it's
(32:37):
you hello again.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
William H.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Bonnie was born at a pivotal moment in his nation's history.
And like his country, he was stranded in a oh
wasteland between identities, caught in a struggle to be whole
and driven by a longing for a purpose in a
new land. And so there is some of Billy the
(33:24):
Kid in every American, each displaced from their ancestral past,
and each still searching for a new identity, a renewed
sense of belonging, a family, a country. Woven into the
fabric of the American psyche, is that same hope and
(33:48):
the same.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Battle for equality and justice.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, Billy was a flexible container for the imagination of
this land to fill with whatever it needed. But beneath
it all, yeah, he was just a lost boy, a
mere product of the lawlessness of the era. No Robin Hood,
no Custer. He's just a kid torn between the slant
(34:17):
of two very different men, Just a boy looking for
a father and set adrift in the wild West to
cope with his devils the best that he could. His
passage now complete.
Speaker 11 (34:42):
The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
features Scott Hayes as Billy the Kit. Written by Dan
Bush and Nicholas Dakowski, our executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski,
Matthew Frederick and Alexander Williams. First assistant director, script supervisor
and production coordinator Sarah Klin. Music by Ben Lovett, additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and
(35:06):
Meg Mormon. Editing and sound designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue
editing and sound mixing by Juan Campos. Additional sound editing
by Racket Sound. Our supervising producer is Josh Than. Created
by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski. Produced by Dan Bush.
The Passage is a production of iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com