Billy the Kid Part 5: The Road to Lincoln – The Return of the Kid - Dark Dialogue: Gallows and Gunfights

Episode Transcript
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John (00:12):
Every outlaw has a point of no return for Billy the kid.
It wasn't a gunfight, it was a road.
A long, empty stretch of dust andregret that ran east from Arizona
territory, carrying him backinto New Mexico and into legend.
He left the territory once before aboy with quick hands and bad luck.

(00:35):
Wanted for a petty theft that turnedinto a death sentence In Silver City.
He'd been just HenryMcCarty or Kid Antrim.
To the few who bothered to remember him.
He'd robbed a Chinese laundry for ahandful of clothes, got caught and
slipped a jail window like a ghost thatescaped marked his first true crime.

(00:56):
And his first taste of freedomearned through desperation.
Arizona was supposed to be a clean state.
It wasn't.
In Camp Grant.
He found work breakinghorses and playing cards.
A drifter trying to stay aheadof his past, but Billy had a
temper that burned fast and short.
In August of 1877, a blacksmithnamed Frank Wendy Cahill picked the

(01:22):
wrong day to push the wrong kid.
Words turned to fists.
Fists turned to blood, and beforethe dust settled, Wendy Cahill
laid dying on the saloon floor.
Billy claims self-defense.
The law called it murder.
They threw him in the guardhouse andbefore the sentence could come down, he
was gone again, slipping into the desert,like smoke on the wind, he fled east

(01:47):
through Apache country alone, starvinghis horse stolen and his body failing.
Days later, a rancher namedHeis school Jones found him
half dead in the Pecos Valley.
The Jones family nursed the kidback from the edge, gave him food,
shelter, and his second chance at life.
But the frontier had nomercy for second chances.

(02:10):
When he rode again, he didn'tride toward reputation.
He rode toward company.
Toward men who spoke hislanguage outlaws wrestlers and
restless souls chasing fortune.
One stone steer at a time.
They called themselves the boys, agang led by Jesse Evans, a thief with

(02:31):
charm and cruelty and equal measure.
Billy fell in with them and togetherthey rode the Pecos trails, lifting
cattle, drinking, gambling, anddrifting through the shadows of the law.
By late 1877, the gangs trail lednorth into Lincoln County, a place
where the rich ruled like kings, andthe law was just another hired gun.

(02:54):
Billy rode into town as the kid,another saddle in Jesse Evans crew.
Not yet famous, not yet feared.
Just another drifter in a landthat turned boys into bullets.
He couldn't have known it then,but the road that brought him
into Lincoln would never let himleave the docket before the court.
Tonight, the return of the kid,the Outlaws road, back to New

(03:19):
Mexico and the first step towardthe war that would make his name
immortal Court, is now in session.
Hey Angela.
How's it going today, John?
It's good.
How are you?
I'm doing all right.
We got new toys to play withhere in the studio, and So

Angela (03:38):
you play with the toys?

John (03:40):
Yes.
See if we can get our audio qualitya little bit better and I don't
know, I can do all kinds of coolshit with this, so I'm excited.
But it's taken, it's prettysteep learning curve.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Angela (03:53):
That's why you play with the toys and I don't,

John (03:55):
this is probably true.

Angela (03:56):
Yeah.
That's a good, it's, yeah.

John (03:59):
So, uh, you ready for this new episode?
We're finally through introduintroducing a whole bunch of freaking
people and onto just telling thestory now, so it's kind of exciting.
So wel welcome back listeners toDark Dialogue, galas and Gunfights,
the courtroom of the Old Westwhere every outlaw, lawman, and

(04:22):
legend takes the stand under.

Angela (04:25):
If you've been riding with us this far, you've seen the lines
between right and wrong blur untilthey're nothing but dust in the horizon.
And tonight we followthat dust trail east.
As Billy the kid rides out ofArizona, back into New Mexico
and straight into the storm.
That would make him a legend.

John (04:43):
He's no hero yet.
No myth, no ghost of the frontier.
He's just the kid.
Half outlaw, half survivor, ridinginto Lincoln County with Jesse Evans
gang at his side, and no idea what kindof empire he is about to walk into.

Angela (05:00):
It's that turning point every outlaw face when the choices stop being
about right or wrong and start being aboutwho lives long enough to tell the story.

John (05:09):
And before we seal the next case file, do us a favor.
If you're listening on Spotify, applePodcasts or YouTube, hit that follow
button and give us a thumbs up.

Angela (05:20):
Leave a review, share the show with someone who loves the real stories of
the Old West, not the Hollywood ones, andhelp keep these trails of history alive.

John (05:29):
Your support keeps the lights burning in this courtroom of the past
and lets us keep putting the legendsof the West on the witness stand.

Angela (05:37):
Courts in session again, and the kids just ridden into Lincoln.

John (05:43):
Before Billy, the kid ever took up a gun in the name of justice, he
took a horse that wasn't his late 1877Lincoln County, New Mexico territory.
The name on the arrest sheetwasn't Billy the kid yet.
It was William h Bonnie or sometimesHenry McCarty, depending on who was

(06:04):
asking and who he was running from.
He'd been working for SheriffWilliam Brady earning his keep
mending fences in wrangling cattle.
But the sheriff's pay never stretchedfar enough for a drifter with
restless, ands, and a gambler streak.
So like so many young men onthe frontier, Billy supplemented
his wages with side work.

(06:24):
Work that didn't come with a ledgeror a signature wrestling, livestock
trading horses cutting cornerswhere the law looked the other way.
One of those horses carried thebrand of John Henry Tunstall,
the English rancher and merchantwith new money and old enemies.
Ttell was trying to break themonopoly of Murphy and Dolan the

(06:47):
house, and that made his stock asvaluable as it was dangerous to touch.
Billy either didn't know or didn't care.
It was Richard Dick Brewer,Tunsell's foreman who found him.
Brewer was a quiet man, capable, loyal,and not yet the captain of the regulators.
He'd one day become, he spottedBilly with one of Tunstall stolen

(07:10):
horses, and did what duty required.
He made the arrest himselffor the first time.
The kids stood on the wrong side ofthe bars in the Lincoln County Jail,
a small Adobe building with more ratsthan guards and no comfort beyond
a patch of shade from the no sun.
The charge was theft, a hangingoffense if the court felt inclined

(07:33):
to make an example of him.
The Lincoln was a land wherejustice depended on who signed
the order and who paid the fee.
And for all the law written on paper,the real law was still written on
dust, blood, and cattle brands.
Billy's arrest was brief, butits consequences lasted forever.
Behind those bars, he got his first close.

(07:55):
Look at the powers thatruled Lincoln County.
The corrupt sheriff who paid hiswages, the foreign rancher whose
horses he'd stolen, and the foremanwho would soon let him into the
war that would make him famous.
The verdict of time, thestolen horse didn't just mark
Billy's first crime in Lincoln.
It marked his first collusion withthe men who would shape his destiny.

(08:19):
Brady Tunstall Brewer, three names thatwould soon carve the line between Lawman
outlaw and martyr and leave the kidsstanding somewhere in between the boys sat
in a Lincoln County jail cell staring ata future that looked a lot like the past.
Short, cold, and going nowhere outside.

(08:42):
The sun baked the street and the lawwent about its business counting.
Cattle writing warrants sellingjustice one favor at a time.
Then the door opened and the man whostepped inside was not the sheriff,
and he wasn't the prosecutor,and he wasn't there to hang him.
It was John Henry Kunal, the Englishrancher, whose horse the kid had stolen.

(09:07):
Kunal had every right to press charges.
He could have made an example of thethief, let the law do its work, and
prove that his brand carried the sameweight as Murphy and Dolans, but that
wasn't the man that Tunstall was.
He'd come west chasing somethingnoble than profit, an idea of fairness
in a place that had forgotten whatthe word meant and what he saw in

(09:30):
that cell wasn't a hardened outlaw.
It was a wiry, sunburnedteenager with bright eyes and
a mind quicker than his hands.
Witnesses say Tunstall wassurprised, maybe even disarmed
by how polite the prisoner was.
Billy spoke well.
He read well and methis gaze without fear.

(09:51):
Some said Tunstall even smiled whenthe kid cracked a joke about the
irony of stealing from the onlyhonest rancher in Lincoln County.
Whatever the reason, mercywon out over vengeance.
Tunstall dropped the charges.
Instead of letting the law chew theboy up and spit him out, he offered
him a job, a legitimate one cowboy,cattle guard, ranch hand work that

(10:17):
paid in dollars instead of debt.
For the first time in a long while,someone treated Billy McCarty like a man.
Not a mistake, and that was all it took.
He rode out to the Tunstall Ranch, aplace that promised something close
to decency there under the open sky.

(10:38):
He worked alongside men who hadone day become legends themselves.
Dick Brewer, CharlieBowry and Doc Scurlock.
The kid found somethingrarer than freedom.
He found respect.
It was a small decision, oneman's choice to forgive instead of
punish, but it changed everything.

(10:59):
Sal's Mercy gave the outlaw home aname and a cause, and in return, it
gave history the bond that would lightthe fuse for the Lincoln County War.
The verdict of time when John Tto openedthat cell door, he wasn't just freeing
a prisoner, he was recruiting a soldier.
And Billy the kid would repay that actof mercy with loyalty that lasted beyond

(11:23):
life, beyond legend and beyond the grave.
When John Tunstall hired Billy the Kidin late 1877, it marked a turning point.
Maybe the first real one in theyoung drifter short, uncertain life.
Tunsell's Ranch stood as one ofthe few outposts in Lincoln County,

(11:43):
not under the shadow of the House,Murphy and Dolan's monopoly that
controlled land, law and livelihood.
The Englishman spread ran withstructure, fairness, and a code
that valued loyalty over lineageto the men working those fields.
It wasn't just a ranch, it was a refuge.
Constable didn't just give Billy work,he gave him something rarer trust.

(12:07):
He outfitted him with a horse, asaddle, and a brand new Winchester
73 rifle on the frontier.
Those weren't gifts.
They were declarations for a teenagerwith no family and few allies, they
were the first real sign that someonesaw more in him than just trouble.

(12:27):
Billy worked as a cowboy and acattle guard protecting constable's
herds from the wrestlers and therival factions who proud the hills.
Every day was long and uncertain.
Riding fence lines, moving stock,keeping watch for thieves or
deputies who serve Murphy and Dolan'sinterest instead of the law out here.

(12:47):
Justice came on horseback and it worewhichever badge had been bought that week.
But on Tonsils Ranch, Billyfound something that resembled
home the crew around him.
Men like Charlie Bowry and RichardDick Brewer became more than coworkers.
They became a kind of familyfound by the decency of the man

(13:08):
who led them, and united by theirquiet defiance of the house.
Tung still treated Billy with respectand dignity, two currencies that carried
more value than gold in Lincoln County.
Billy would later say that Ttell wasthe only man who ever treated him.
Quote, like I was a freeborn and white end quote.

(13:30):
Crude words from the time, but theyrevealed a deeper truth, the kid's
loneliness, the prejudice he'dendured, and how profoundly that
simple respect cut through yearsof being dismissed as a nobody.
In those months, Billy began callinghimself William h Bonnie, full-time,
shedding the names Henry McCartyand Kid Antrim, like worn out skins.

(13:54):
He wasn't hiding anymore.
He was reinventing, working for Tunstall,gave him what the frontier had always
denied him belonging, purpose, anda cause that felt worth defending.
There were no gunfights yet, noambushes, no headlines, just a fragile
piece stretched thin between rivalempires, Murphy and Dolan's House

(14:16):
on one side, and Tunsell's defiantidealism on the other, but anyone
with sense could feel it in the air.
The storm was coming and when it broke.
The boy from nowhere.
The ranch hand with the Winchester riflewould be right in the middle of it.
The verdict of time before thelegend, before the blood, there

(14:38):
was a ranch in Lincoln County wherea young outlaw found his purpose.
And in the months before thewar, Billy Bonnie learned the one
lesson he'd carried to his grave.
Loyalty isn't bought, it's earned.
When Billy, the kid, worked the TunstallRanch near the Rio Felix, through the
winter of 1877 into the early months of1878, the ground beneath Lincoln County

(15:04):
began to shake quietly at first, thenharder with every passing week on paper.
It was a legal dispute.
In truth, it was the opening act of a war.
The spark came from the estate of EmilFritz, the dead partner of the house,
the Murphy Dolan empire that had runLincoln County like a private kingdom.

(15:25):
Alexander McSwain, John Tunsell's Allyand attorney had been named executor
of Fritz's sizable insurance policy.
When McSwain refused to hand thefunds over to Murphy and Dolan,
James Dolan went to court and won awrit that would change everything.
Sheriff William Brady loyal to thehouse, was ordered to collect the

(15:48):
so-called debt the writ, gave himthe authority to seize over $40,000
in livestock and assets, constables,cattle, horses, wagons, even supplies.
It was a weapon disguisedas law out on the ranch.
The men could feel it in the air.
Every rioter on the horizon mighthave been one of Brady's deputies or

(16:12):
one of the hired guns who wore thebadge by day and the house's colors.
By night, Billy Bonniewas there through it all.
He might not have been in thecourthouse, but he didn't have to be.
He could see the anxiety on every facehere, the whispers around the fire.
When someone spotted dust on the horizon,the Tunstall outfit stayed armed,

(16:33):
alert and ready letters and suppliesfrom town came late or not at all.
What had been long days of ranch workturned into nights of sleepless watch.
Tunstall refused to surrender.
If Sheriff Brady wanted hisstock, he'd have to find it first.
The Englishman began moving his mostvaluable herds to safer ground, and for

(16:56):
one critical job, he turned to the kid.
Billy was ordered to relocate nineprime horses, slipping them past
deputies and wrestlers who proud theopen range, looking for easy seizures.
It wasn't a gunfight, but it wasa mission of trust and danger.
For Billy, it meant something.

(17:16):
A man like Tunstall wouldn't hand ateenager, a Winchester, a good horse,
and that kind of responsibilityunless he believed in him.
At the ranch, Dick Brewer, CharlieBowry and the others tightened
their circle around Tunstall.
They saw what the house wasdoing using the sheriff's badge
as a brand of intimidation, andthey were done hiding from it.

(17:39):
What started is legal paperwork had turnedinto armed standoffs waiting to happen.
Billy, the kid was watching itall, taking mental notes the
way some men keep prayer books.
He was learning how power workedin Lincoln County, that the
law was just another gun if youcould afford the ammunition.
And in those tense, sleeplessweeks before the first bullet

(18:00):
was fired, the kid's loyaltyhardened into something like faith.
The verdict of time before the shootingbegan, the war was already being fought in
courtrooms, ledgers, and livestock pens.
Billy Bonnie rode through it all,discovering that justice in Lincoln
County didn't come from judges or juries.

(18:21):
It came from whichever side hadthe courage to stand its ground.
February 18th, 1878, the daythe Lincoln County War began.
Not with a battle, but with abetrayal dressed up as the law.
That morning, John Tunstall rodeout from his ranch near the Rio

(18:43):
Felix, leading a small party of men.
With him were Billy, the kidRichard, Dick Brewer, Robert Windman,
John Middleton and Henry Brown.
Five riders protecting ninehorses bound for Lincoln.
The order was clear, move the stock, keepit safe, and stay ahead of the house.

(19:05):
Dunst, still's, cattle andhorses have become targets
in a so-called debt seizure.
A legal WR signed by Sheriff WilliamBrady, who served Murphy and Dolan's
interest like scripture for Brady's Posse.
This wasn't law enforcement,it was collection work.
As the party rode north, a cloudof dust rose on the horizon.

(19:25):
Brady's posse, Jesse Evans,William Morton, Tom Hill, and
several others was closing fast.
Every man in that group carried abadge, a rifle, and a reputation
for working both sides of the law.
When the two groups cut sideof one another tonsils, men
reacted the only way they could.

(19:46):
Billy Brewer and the other spurred theirhorses and scattered seeking cover in
the rolling terrain, hearts pounding,rain, snapping through the cold.
February Air, Billy took refuge inthe brush watching from a distance.
As the Sheriff's posse rode down on hisemployer, John Tunstall stayed behind.
He wasn't armed for a fight.

(20:07):
He tried to reason with them,raised his hands, spoke calmly.
He believed the law could stillbe reasoned with he was wrong.
Witnesses later say he lifted his armsto show that he carried no weapon.
Moments later, Jesse Evans, WilliamMorton, and Tom Hill closed in.
Tunstall was shot throughthe head at close range.

(20:29):
When his body hit the ground, hishorse went down beside him, both left
in the dust as proof that the jobwas done from their hiding places.
Billy the kid and the othersaw the aftermath, the lifeless
shape of the man who had treatedthem with fairness and dignity.
The man who had given them purpose andthe laman who had rode away without

(20:49):
consequence, they rode back to the ranch.
In shock.
By nightfall, word of thekilling had reached Lincoln.
It was no longer about cattleor debt or rival stores.
It was about justiceby badge or by bullet.
That gunfire on the open rangedidn't just end a man's life.

(21:11):
It ended the piece of a countyin the days that followed.
Billy Bonnie and the others who workedfor Tunstall Brewer, Bowry, Scurlock
Middleton, they all swore an oath.
They would form a new posse, onebound, not by pay, but by loyalty.
They called themselves the regulators.

(21:31):
The verdict of time, the killingof John Tunsell was murder.
Carried out under color of law.
It turned ranch hands into gunman,friends into Avengers, and Billy,
the kid from a drifting cowboy intoa name history would never forget.
So not quite the way itwent down in young guns.

(21:52):
Not quite, not quite, I mean, ascold-blooded for sure as it was portrayed,
but a little bit different story.

Angela (22:01):
Tiny.

John (22:03):
So the killing of John Henry, Henry Tunstall wasn't quick and it wasn't clean.
He was struck first in the chest, knockinghim from his horse, and then finished
with a bullet to the back of his head.
The men who did it, Jesse Evans,William Morton and Tom Hill wore
badges that day, but not honor.
They staged the sceneto look like a fight.

(22:26):
Tunsell's hat and coatwere arranged nearby.
His position twisted to suggest that he'dresisted arrest, but everyone who saw
it later, Billy Dick, John Middleton,Henry Brown, Robert Windman, Fred
Waite, they all swore to the same truth.
Constable was unarmed andhe never drew a weapon.

(22:48):
The gunfires scattered his men acrossthe hills, but not far enough to miss
what came next from their hiding places.
They watch their employer fall, watch thelaw right away, like thieves in daylight.
When the sound of hooves faded,they returned to the body.
The air was heavy silent except for therestless shuffle of the dead man's horse.

(23:11):
They lifted tons tunsell's body ontothe back of a burrow and began the
long 20 mile ride back towards Lincoln.
They buried him at the ranch undera clear sky that did nothing to
soften the anger in their hearts.
For Billy, the loss was personal.
He later said that Tal was the only manwho had ever treated him with dignity.

(23:34):
That respect had been rare in LincolnCounty, and its loss hit harder
than any bullet at the graveside.
Billy Bonnie swore revenge.
Those who were there, said that he spokethe words out loud over the fresh earth.
His voice steady and cold.
In that moment, the war stoppedbeing about cattle and contracts,

(23:55):
and it became personal.
By Dawn, Dick, brewer, and Billy,the kid ran Lincoln standing before
Justice of the Peace, John B.
Wilson, one of the few officialsnot owned by the house.
They gave sworn affidavits describingthe murder and naming the killers.
Sheriff, William Brady, Jesse Evans,William Morton, and Tom Hill Wilson

(24:18):
agreed and he signed murder, murderwarrants, turning the machinery of
law against the men who perverted it.
Then he made a decision that wouldchange the face of Lincoln County.
He deputized Tunsell's own men.
Dick Brewer became special Constableand Billy, along with Fred, wait,
John Middleton and the others weresworn in as special deputies charged

(24:43):
with arresting constable's killers.
It was the birth of anew force in Lincoln.
The newspapers wouldlater call them outlaws.
They called themselves something else.
The regulators.
Within 48 hours, cowboyshad become lawmen.
And in Lincoln County, the line betweenjustice and vengeance vanished entirely.

(25:04):
The verdict of time, constable'smurder turned grief into purpose and
the law into a weapon of defiance.
Billy Ivanni once a drifting hand,now carried both a badge and a
rifle, and for the first time, hepointed both in the same direction.
The regulators were born, notout of rebellion, but out of

(25:26):
betrayal, and the war that followedwould make their names immortal.
Two days after John Tunsell's murder, thefragile balance of law in Lincoln County
finally broke what had started his legalprocedure now twisted into open defiance.
Each side carried its own warrants,its own vision of justice, and

(25:48):
both were willing to kill for it.
On February 20th, 1878, Billy, thekid wrote into the town of Lincoln
with a lawful purpose under his newauthority as a deputy constable for
Justice of the Peace, John V. Wilson,he was there to serve murder warrants
against Sheriff William Brady, JesseEvans, and the others accused of killing

(26:10):
Constable with Erode Fred Wait andConstable Martinez Reman armed, not just
with rifles, but with the law itself.
They found Brady and his alliesgathered at Dolan's store the
very heart of the house's empire.
Billy stepped forward warrant in handdoing what lawmen were supposed to do,

(26:32):
but in Lincoln County, the law belongedto whoever had the most guns behind it.
Brady refused the papers outright.
He rejected Wilson's authority, sneeredat the warrants, and decided to show
the kid what real power looked like.
The sheriff turned the tablesarresting Billy the kid, Fred Waite
and Constable Martinez on the spot.

(26:54):
They confiscated every weapon theycarried, including that Winchester
73 rifle that Tunstall had givenBilly only weeks before to the kid.
The gun wasn't just a tool, itwas a symbol of trust losing.
It was like losingTunstall all over again.
Martinez was released almost immediately,a token gesture to keep up appearances,

(27:17):
but Billy weight weren't so lucky.
They were thrown into jail,left to stew in the dark.
Billy's captivity didn't last.
Deputy US Marshall, Robert Windman, afriend and ally of the anti house faction,
arrived in Lincoln with military backing,backed by a detachment of soldiers.

(27:38):
Windman confronted Brady'smen arrested the jail guards
and set the prisoners free.
The regulators wrote out again,unbroken and angrier than ever.
In that moment, the fight for justicestopped pretending to be legal.
Two governments now existed in LincolnCounty, one run by the house and the

(27:59):
other by the men who refused to bowto it, and both claim the same badge.
The verdict of time by arresting BillyBonnie and then losing him to his allies.
Sheriff Brady proved whateveryone already knew.
Lincoln County had no law left to enforce.
When the jail doors opened, theregulators didn't just walk free.

(28:21):
They crossed the line from lawfuldeputies to soldiers in a private war.
The ink on the regulator'sbadges was barely dry before the
territory stepped in to erase them.
News of Tunsell's murder, theregulator's formation and the murder
warrants against Sheriff WilliamBrady Spread fast, too fast for Santa

(28:43):
Fe to ignore what began as a countydispute now looked like rebellion.
In February of 1878, New Mexicoterritorial Governor Samuel Beach,
ax Tale decided to act to outsiders.
It was about restoring order, but anyonein Lincoln County could see the truth.
Axel's hand rested squarelyon the side of the house.

(29:07):
Murphy and Dolan weren't justmerchants, they were political power.
They supplied the forts, fed the soldiers,and lined the pockets of men in Santa Fe.
When Axel heard that a small townjustice in a band of ranch hands had
taken upon themselves to challengethat machine, he didn't see justice.
He saw insubordination.

(29:28):
Axel moved quickly.
He revoked the commission ofJustice of the Peace, John B.
Wilson, the very man who haddeputized dick, brewer, Billy the
kid, and the rest of tonsils men,and with a single stroke of the pen.
Every warrant that Wilson hadissued, every badge that he'd
handed out, vanished into smoke.

(29:48):
Overnight.
The regulators went from lawful officersto outlaws Their badges meant nothing.
Their authority was gone.
What had been a mission for justicewas now branded vigilantism.
Governor Axel's decisiondidn't stop the violence.
It gave it new fuel.
From that day forward, every bulletfired by the regulators could be

(30:11):
labeled a crime, and every man theyhunted could claim self-defense.
The deck was stacked.
The law reloaded and Lincoln Countywas set to burn the verdict of time.
When Governor Axtel stripped theregulators of their authority, he
didn't bring peace to the territory.
He guaranteed war by choosingpower over principle.

(30:34):
He turned justice into treasonand made fugitives of the very
men who had once worn the badge.
Early March of 1878, theLincoln County War had no more
illusions of peace left to lose.
The regulators were stripped oftheir badges branded outlaws by
the governor himself, yet stilldetermined to carry out the justice

(30:58):
that the law refused to deliver.
On March 6th, 1878, the posse ledby Dick Brewer rode South into the
rugged country near the Rio Penasco.
With him were Billy the kid,red Weight, and several others.
Men who had once been ranch handsnow wearing the weight of deputies

(31:19):
turned renegades their query.
William Buck Morton and Frank Baker,both named in affidavits as participants
in the killing of John Tunstall.
For weeks, the two fugitives had alludedcapture moving through the arroyos in the
ranch land under the protection of alliesloyal to the house, but the regulators had
something more powerful than protection.

(31:41):
They had purpose.
When brewer's men finally caught sightof Morton and Baker near the Penasco,
there was no dramatic gunfight, nolast stand, outnumbered, tired, and
facing men who had sworn vengeance.
The fugitives did somethingfew expected they surrendered.

(32:02):
Morton, perhaps sensing a glimmer ofhope, agreed to lay down his arms on one
condition that he and Bakker be returnedalive to Lincoln to stand before a judge.
Instead of a firing line, brewerand the regulators still clinging to
the last fragments of legality thatthey once held, gave their word.

(32:23):
They swore that both men would see afair trial with their prisoners secured.
The regulators began thelong ride back north.
It was more than a routine escort.
It was a statement for the firsttime since Tunsell's death.
His killers were in custody, andthe men who had buried him now
held his justice in their hands.

(32:45):
But on those lonely trails betweenthe Penasco and Lincoln, the
air grew heavier by the mile.
No one spoke much.
Every man knew the score.
There were no, no courts left to trust,no law left to appeal to, and too many
guns waiting on both sides of the horizon.

(33:06):
The verdict of time on the roadfrom the Rio Penasco, the regulators
carried two prisoners and the lastremnants of their promise to the law.
But out here, promises had a shortlife, and by the time they reached
Lincoln, two more men would be dead,and the line between justice and
vengeance would be gone for good.

(33:29):
For four long days after the captureon the Rio Penasco, the regulators
rode North six men escorting twoprisoners across some of the loneliest
land in New Mexico territory.
The sun burned all day.
The wind cut by night, and no one spokemore than they had to their prisoners,

(33:50):
William Buck Morton and Frank Baker, twoof the men accused of killing Tunstall,
their captors, Dick Brewer, Billy thekid, Fred Waite, Charlie Bowry, John
Middleton, and a handful of others.
Every man in the saddle knewwhy they were really there.
They called it an arrest, but underthe dust and the silence, it felt

(34:11):
more like a funeral processionwaiting for the service to begin.
Morton had surrendered only afterbrewers swore on his word that they'd
be taken a life to Lincoln, but promisesweighed light in Lincoln County.
According to later recollections,Morton told more than one
traveler along the trail that hedoubted he'd ever see town again.

(34:33):
He even managed to send out a letterwritten under guard, claiming he
and Baker were being treated harshlyand that he expected to be killed
despite the regulator's oath.
No copy of that letter survives, but thestory of it does whispered in courtrooms
and campfires for years afterwardwithin the group, the tension was thick

(34:55):
enough to taste men like George Coe.
Later recalled arguments, sharp wordstraded between Brewer and some of his
deputies, maybe even Billy himself,about what to do with the prisoners.
Nobody recorded the details, but thesilence of those rides says Enough.
The regulators were torn between justiceand revenge, and the line between

(35:17):
the two got thinner with every mile.
Morton kept talking, kept watchingtheir eyes when they stopped for water.
Baker Road, quiet beside him,listening Four days on the trail,
four days under armed guard.
Four days of promises no one believed.
The longer they rode, the clearerit became that this wasn't a march

(35:40):
toward trial, it was a countdown,the verdict of time on the road
between the Penasco and Lincoln.
The war was still pretendingto be lawful, but every hoof
beat was erasing that illusion.
By the time the sun set on the fourth day.
Two men were still breathing whoshouldn't have trusted the law.

(36:01):
And a posse sworn to uphold it was aboutto decide what justice really meant.
By the morning of March 9th, 1878, theride was over four days out of the sco,
the regulators reached a narrow stretchof country near Blackwater Creek.
The prisoners, William Buck, Morton andFrank Baker were still alive, still under

(36:25):
guard, and still clinging to the promisethat they'd be taken safely to Lincoln.
But in Lincoln County, promisesdidn't live long, and what happened
next depends on who you ask.
According to the regulatorsthemselves, Morton and Baker made
a break for it, an escaped attemptin rough country, somewhere near
the banks of the Blackwater.

(36:46):
Dick Brewer acting as leader, claimedthat he and his men open fire only
after the prisoners bolted, leavingthem with no choice but to shoot.
When the smoke cleared Morton Baker, anda regulator named McCloskey were all dead.
That's the official story.
It appeared in statements intavern talk and in letters sent

(37:07):
to justify the killings afterward.
But even in 1878, you believed it.
The other version, the one whispered inLincoln Streets, pulled a darker tail.
Morton and Baker, they said, never ran.
They were executed, shot down incold blood by men who'd lost faith

(37:27):
in law and patience with justice.
It was also claimed that McClowskywas colluding with them to escape
evidence from those who found.
The body spoke louder than any affidavit.
Each man had been shot multiple times.
The wounds in the back of the head,the kind that don't come from running,

(37:48):
gunfights, their corpses lay side byside with McClowsky nearby the air around
them smelled not a fear but of revenge.
Morton Edward predicted it days earlier.
He told the on the trail and evenwritten it in a letter that he'd
never reached Lincoln alive, thathe didn't trust the regulator's

(38:08):
word and history proved him right.
The truth of what happened to BlackwaterCreek will never be proven in a courtroom.
But even regulator George Coeyears later admitted that tempers
were high, words were sharp, andthe balance between justice and
vengeance was hanging by a thread.

(38:29):
The killing of McCloskeyonly deepened the mystery.
Some claimed that he triedto help the prisoners escape.
Others said that he'd been marked as atraitor or simply caught in the crossfire
of rage and paranoia that had beenbuilding for miles the verdict of time,
whether it was an escape or an execution.
The result was the same.

(38:50):
Three men dead and the last trace oflegality gone from the regulator's.
Cause the Blackwater killingsturned a feud into open war.
From that moment on Lincoln Countywould be ruled, not by courts or
warrants, but by lead and loyalty.
So again, a little bit differentthan it played out in young guns.

(39:12):
I think they, they had to kindaspeed things up a little bit, so
they just caught 'em and killed them.
But it had to suck for those guys being,you know, riding, knowing they're not
taking you back to Lincoln, how could theypossibly take 'em back to Lincoln where
the sheriff was a total pile of shit.
Yeah.
So they knew.

(39:32):
It just is surprising.
It took four days for him to do the deed.

Angela (39:36):
Yeah,

John (39:40):
the same day bullets found William Buck Morton and Frank
Baker on the road to Lincoln.
Fate dealt its own hand, 80 milesSouthwest, near the settlement of
Tularosa, where two more of John Tunsell'skillers would meet their reckoning,
not from the regulator's guns, butfrom the very life they chose to live.
Tom Hill, one of the men who hadridden with Jesse Evans and fired the

(40:04):
shots that killed Tunstall was backto what he knew best robbery Hill.
And Evans still flying.
The Murphy Dolan banner tried to holdup a group of locals near Tularosa,
but this time the locals shot back.
When the smoke cleared, PalmHill was dead where he fell.
The outlaw, who once carriedout the house's dirty work

(40:27):
now lay face down in the dust.
His final crime undoneby his own arrogance.
Jesse Evans, the hard eyedleader of the gang that bore his
name, didn't fare much better.
He caught lead during the samegunfight, badly wounded, bleeding,
and suddenly mortal in a waythat he'd never been before.

(40:47):
Lawman from the area,arrested him where he lay.
The same man who had terrorizedLincoln County for years now found
himself in a jail cell, two weakto run, and two wounded to fight.
It was a strange symmetry.
On March 9th, 1878, while theregulators killed Morton and Bak near
Blackwater Creek, the house's hiredguns were falling apart into LaRosa.

(41:11):
Within a few hours, three ofthe men responsible for tonsils
murder were dead or captured.
The Evans gang.
Once the muscle behind the house'siron rule was shattered, hill was gone.
Evans was wounded and under arrest,and the chain of command inside the
Murphy Dolan faction was broken.

(41:31):
It didn't bring peace, not by a longshot, but it shifted the balance.
The regulators might have lost theirbadges, but for the first time since
the war began, they weren't the onlyones bleeding the verdict of time.
The death of Tom Hill in the fallof Jesse Evans didn't end the war.
It only changed its temperature.

(41:52):
For the first time, the house feltthe weight of its own violence, and
in Lincoln County, retribution wasstarting to look a lot like justice.
So on the morning of April 1st,1878, it's amazing just how
fast all this shit's happening.
It's like boom, boom, boom,boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Yeah.
So the morning of April 1st, 1878began like any other in the town of

(42:17):
Lincoln, New Mexico, a long strip ofdust in Adobe where the law was decided
by whoever could draw the fastest.
But under that quiet something mean wasbuilding Sheriff William Brady, the man
who wore the house's star, walked hisusual route down Main Street with him were
deputies George Henman and Billy Matthews.

(42:40):
Both loyal, both armed, both veteransof too many skirmishes to count.
They were out to serve papers, watchfor regulators, and remind Lincoln
who still held authority to them.
It was another morning of orderin a county spinning apart.
Across the street unseen, behindconstable's, old store, six men waited.

(43:04):
They weren't lawmen anymore.
Not officially, but they still carriedthe badges inside them like ghosts.
Billy the kid, Jim French,Frank McNabb, John Middleton,
Henry Newton, brown, Fred, wait.
The regulators, constable's writersturned Avengers crouched in silence

(43:24):
behind Adobe walls and rough cut fences.
Their rifles leveled at the very manthey blamed for their employer's murder.
The Carell gave them perfect cover, anelevated view of the street shadows,
deep enough to hide six men in a cause.
They had been there since dawn,waiting, breathing, the same dry

(43:46):
air that always hung before agunfight from their positions.
They could see every doorway, everyhitching post, every step that Brady took.
The objective was clear and simple.
Kill Sheriff Brady.
Not out of blood lust, butout of something colder.
Retribution Brady had stood at thecenter of Tunsell's murder, had arrested.

(44:09):
Billy and the others under falseauthority had mocked every notion
of fairness that Lincoln had left.
Now, the regulator's meantto end it out on the street.
Brady and his men had no reasonto expect what waited for them.
They moved along the same route as alwayspast the Murphy and Dolan stores, the

(44:29):
courthouse and down the street lined withmerchants who watched from behind their
windows pretending to sweep or tend stock.
Lincoln wasn't a town that missed much.
Everyone knew something wascoming, they just didn't know when.
Inside the corral, Billy watchedfrom the shadows one finger resting

(44:49):
on the trigger of a Winchester.
He could see Brady's badge flash inthe morning sun, a glint that must have
looked almost holy to a man about to die.
All around him.
The others waited.
Rifle steady hearts pacinglike the ticking of a clock.
The street was empty except for thelawmen walking into the center of town.

(45:12):
The town folk had vanished indoors,drawn by instinct or by fear.
Even the horses were restless shiftingagainst their tethers, hooves,
scraping nervously against the stone.
Lincoln held its breath.
The regulators held their fire, andfor one suspended moment in time,

(45:32):
the war weighted balance betweenjustice and the pull of a trigger.
Quiet along.
Lincoln's main street was thin as glass,ready to shatter at the touch of a trigger
behind the Adobe wall of Tunsell's Corral.
The six men waited.
Each one held his place in the dust,in the shadow rifles resting across the

(45:55):
wall's edge, eyes fixed on the figures.
Moving below down on the street.
Sheriff William Brady and his deputies,Hinman and Matthews and others,
walked their usual patrol routepassing in front of Dolan's store.
To them, it was just anothermorning under the same hard sky.
They didn't know the men they'd huntedwere watching from 20 yards away,

(46:19):
waiting for them to step into the open.
Then the first shot came.
Brady went down first hit multipletimes before he could even draw.
He fell hard into the dirt.
His badge flashing once in the sunlightbefore vanishing beneath it beside him.
Deputy George w Hinman staggeredhit in the chest in the throat,

(46:41):
collapsing only feet away.
The air filled with gun smoke and thesharp echo of rifles off Adobe walls.
The ambush was over in seconds,but the sound hung in Lincoln,
like thunder that wouldn't fade.
Brady and Hinman laid dead inthe street and the rest of the
sheriff's men scrambled for coverfiring wildly towards the corral.

(47:02):
But the regulators were ghosts behind thewall, unseen, unflinching, and silent.
Once their work was done.
It wasn't random, it wasn't rage, it wasretribution, broad daylight vengeance.
For John Tunstall, the man who had treatedBilly Bonny, like more than an outlaw.

(47:22):
A message written in gunfire declaringthat the house no longer owned
Lincoln County and that the regulatorswould answer murder with murder.
When the shooting stopped, Lincolnfell silent, just the his of wind.
Through bullet holes in the softscrape of boots retreating into
doorways, sheriff William Brady andDeputy Henman laid dead in the dirt.

(47:45):
Their badges half buried by the same dustthey'd ruled over, but the fight wasn't
finished from behind the Tunstall Corral,Billy the Kid and Jim French broke cover.
It was a desperate sprint intoopen daylight, two men running
straight into the same line offire that they just unleashed.
They weren't chasing glory.

(48:05):
They were after somethingthat mattered far more.
Lying beside Brady's body wasJohn Tunsell's Winchester rifle.
The weapon Brady had confiscatedweeks earlier when he'd
arrested Billy and Lincoln.
To Billy.
That rifle wasn't justa gun, it was a symbol.
His connection to the man who hadtreated him as more than an outlaw,

(48:27):
but there was more on Brady'sbody than steel and walnut stock.
The sheriff carried papers, arrestwarrants, legal orders, and Ritz
of seizure documents that named theregulators themselves as fugitives.
Billy and French reached the fallensheriff, grabbing the rifle and trying
to snatch the documents from his coatbefore they could make it back to cover.

(48:50):
Deputy Billy Matthews took aim fromacross the street and fired the
bullet, tore through the air andgrazed both men slicing through
flesh at the thigh and the leg.
Billy staggered Frenchstumbled but neither fell.
They dragged the rifle and papersback behind the corral wall as
bullets splitter adobe around them.

(49:11):
Their wounds were light, but themeaning of what they'd done was heavy.
That morning in Lincoln, theyhadn't just killed a sheriff.
They'd reclaimed the last piecesof their fallen employer and
stripped the house of its law.
In one stroke, the Winchesterwas vengeance made tangible.
The papers were survival, and togetherthey told the truth of the war,

(49:34):
that now own Lincoln County, therewere no lawmen left only sides.
The verdict of time, theambush on Sheriff William Brady
marked the point of no return.
By recovering the rifle in the warrants,Billy the kid and the regulators
symbolically took the law into theirown hands, literally and permanently.

(49:56):
From that day on, they weren'tdeputies, cowboys, or Avengers.
They were outlaws men bound, not byoath or badge, but by blood loyalty.
And the memory of John Henry Tunstall.
Four days after the killing of SheriffBrady, the regulators rode south toward

(50:17):
the Sacramento Mountains following a namethat had found its way into their list.
Andrew l Buckshot Robertsto the regulators.
Roberts was another man in the house'spocket, an associate of Jesse Evans,
a sometime rancher and trader who haddone business with Murphy and Dolan.
But Roberts wasn't a lawmanand he wasn't a hired gun.

(50:41):
He was a frontier drifter, an ex Texasranger, a man who'd fought Indians
bandits, and worse, his only crime,at least on paper, was bad company.
The regulators, at least a dozen strong.
Found him at Blazer's Mill, a smallsawmill in settlement in the Rio
Tularosa, owned by Dr. Joseph Blazer.

(51:04):
The group included Billy the kid,Charlie Bowdry, John Middleton, Fred,
wait, and their leader, Dick Brewer.
They came with rifles readyand justice on their tongues.
Brewer called out to Robertsdemanding his surrender.
Roberts refused.
He had no reason to trust a posse thatcarried his justice in gun barrels.

(51:26):
Instead, he grabbed his Winchesterrifle, took cover near the carpenter
shop, and braced himself for thefight that he knew was coming.
The gunfight that followed was pure chaos,close quarters, splintered boards and
powder smoke thick enough to choke a man.
Roberts firing from behind.
Timber piles and doorframes.

(51:47):
Shot Charlie Bowdry through the chest.
Bowdry fell coughing blood,but somehow stayed alive.
Moments later, John Middleton caughta round two, another man down.
Another shock in a fight thatwasn't supposed to be this hard.
Roberts fought like he had a wholedamn army behind him, wounded

(52:08):
bleeding, but still steady.
He fired with deadly precision when DickBrewer tried to flank him, slipping behind
a stack of logs to get a clear shot.
Roberts saw the movement turnedand fired one clean round.
The bullet hit Brewer Square in the eye.
He died instantly falling without a sound.

(52:28):
Even his blood pooled around him.
Buckshot Roberts refused to quit.
He'd taken multiple hits by the timethe shooting stopped, but he had killed.
Brewer, wounded several others andfought a dozen men to a standstill.
By sundown Roberts was dying,they found him slumped inside
one of the mill buildings.

(52:49):
His rifle still warm.
He died that evening.
Taking his pride and his painwith him for the regulators.
The battle at Blazer's Millwas an absolute disaster.
Their best leader, Dick Brewer, was dead.
Their ranks were bloodied,their morale shaken.
The gunfire proved that not everyenemy would fall easily, and that

(53:12):
sometimes vengeance came with acost that they hadn't counted on.
And for Buckshot Roberts, it was alast stand written in fire and grit.
A man who hadn't chosen thiswar but refused to die on
anyone's terms but his own.
By the time the gun smoke clearedat Blazer's Mill, the regulator's
victory had turned hollow.

(53:34):
Dick Brewer, their leader, and theone man who had tried to keep their
vengeance tethered to some kind oforder, was gone, killed by a man
who'd never meant to be their enemy.
Andrew l Buckshot.
Robbers hadn't ridden in theLincoln County War to take sides.
He wasn't a hired gun and he wasn'tone of the house's assassins.

(53:56):
He was a rancher and former TexasRanger, a man who'd seen too many fights
already and was trying to sell hisholdings and leave New Mexico behind.
But war doesn't ask for consent.
The regulators had marked him asa name connected to the house,
and that was enough when theysurrounded him at the mill.
Roberts did not surrender.

(54:17):
He couldn't afford to.
He fought not for politics or power,but because he knew what happened
to men who trusted armed strangerspromising justice, he defended
himself the only way that he knew how.
With precision, with courage, and withthe kind of fatal resolve that came
from experience in the end, he tookDick Brewer's life wounded boundary

(54:40):
in Middleton and held off a dozenarmed men until his own body gave out.
He died that night alone, butunbeaten the verdict of time.
Buckshot Roberts did not deserve to die.
He wasn't a murderer and he wasn't part ofthe machine that had killed John Tunstall.
He was simply a man caught inthe middle of someone else's war.

(55:02):
Brandon, an enemy by association.
His death at Blazer's Mill showed howfar the fight had fallen from its cause,
how vengeance had outgrown justice, andhow good men could be lost for nothing
more than proximity to the wrong name.
For the regulators, the price was steep.
They lost their leader, theirdiscipline, and a piece of the

(55:25):
moral ground they'd once stood on.
From that day forward,there was no illusion left.
The war wasn't aboutright and wrong anymore.
It was about survival, and thetrail ahead would only grow darker.
So again, little bitdifferent than the movie.
I don't know why they decided toportray this guy as like a bounty

(55:46):
hunter that came in after him, butthat was definitely not the case.

Angela (55:51):
Cinema.

John (55:52):
Cinema.
Yep.
But I mean, what more cinematicof a story do you want than that?
They just picked on this poor freakingguy that was trying to sell out and
leave and he kicked the shit out of him.
Yeah, that's pretty freaking cinematic.

Angela (56:07):
Yeah.

John (56:09):
Anyway, when the gun,

Angela (56:11):
like the movie

John (56:12):
I'm, yeah, I, they should have got me to write the damn movie.
When the gunfire faded at Blazer'sMill, only two men laid dead, Dick
Brewer and Buckshot Roberts, but theechoes of that fight would outlast them.
Both the regulators stood in shock amongthe SP shells and the splintered timber.

(56:32):
Their leader, the one manwho kept vengeance from
collapsing into chaos, was gone.
Killed by a man who hadn'teven been their enemy.
In truth, Charlie Bowry and John Middletonbled from their wounds, leaning against
walls, still scarred by rifle fire, redweight, and the others gathered Brewer's
body in silence, two drained for words.

(56:55):
They buried him near the mill on asmall moll overlooking the Rio Tularosa.
No ceremony, no gun salute, justa rough wooden cross bearing his
name and a few words whispered bymen who had run out of prayers.
They didn't dare linger.
The war was spreading and thehunters were already coming.

(57:15):
The regulators were wanted now for thedeaths of Sheriff Brady, deputy Hinman and
Buckshot Roberts, and even for the murdersthat they hadn't yet committed, brew's
death broke something inside the group.
He had been the steady hand, the Lowman'sconscience inside of Band of Outlaws.
Without him command splintered theregulators scattered into smaller

(57:39):
units, retreating southwest into thescrublands, to avoid the soldiers
and the posses riding in their wake.
And in that vacuum, one namebegan to rise above the rest.
Billy the kid, he wasn't the oldestor the wisest, but he was the boldest,
fearless when the others hesitated,reckless, when others paused in

(58:02):
the space, brewer left behind.
Billy filled the silence withgunfire and defiance for the
people living around Blazer's.
Mill, the fight left its mark andthey had watched the war crawl out of
Lincoln and into their valley, and theyunderstood now that it could touch anyone.
Buckshot Roberts, a man trying to sellhis land and walk away from the feud had

(58:25):
died for nothing more than proximity.
To the settlers of the Tularosa.
It was proof that this war nolonger had sides, just victims.
The death of Dick Brewer became a kind offrontier monument, a wooden cross standing
for every man who thought justice couldsurvive in a land ruled by gun smoke.

(58:46):
His grave marked the point where vengeancestopped pretending to be righteousness.
And where the Lincoln County Warbecame what it had always threatened
to be a blood feud without an exit.
After Dick Brewer fell at Blazer'sMill, the regulators were left
leading, leaderless and hunted.

(59:06):
They had buried their captain ona lonely rise by the river, and
with him went the last piece ofrestraint that they still possessed.
Out of that quiet came FrankMcNabb, a ranch foreman, lawman,
and one of the few older handsleft alive from Tunsell's crew.
He wasn't loud.
He wasn't reckless, not yet, buthe carried a calm that men could

(59:30):
follow in a war of hot tempers.
McNabb was the first tothink before drawing.
Still leadership didn'tcome through ceremony.
There were no votes, no speeches, just aslow knot of agreement around the fire.
McNabb took commandbecause somebody had to.
The regulators were fractured,half wounded, half demoralized,

(59:53):
and all wanted men.
Someone needed to pointthem back toward purpose.
Under McNabb, they tried to hold totheir official mission, fined and
punished the killers of John Tunstall.
But the shape of that mission had changed.
The badges were gone, the courts werecorrupt, and every move they made
now drew the blood of new enemies.

(01:00:15):
What had begun as a search for justicewas now a campaign for survival.
McNabb rode hard and often drivingthe regulators through skirmishes
and raids small battles thatdidn't even make the papers, but
left their marks on both sides.
He led them at the Fritz Ranchwhere ambushes and betrayals
became daily hazards, and the linebetween hunter and hunted vanished.

(01:00:40):
Every ride grew riskier,every return thinner.
Frank McNabb's leadership lastedonly weeks, but in the short
time, the war changed again.
Brewer had fought to keep their vengeance.
Legal McNabb fought to keep them alive,and in that shift from order to open
vendetta, the Lincoln County War hardenedinto the conflict history, remembers a

(01:01:04):
storm of retribution with no law leftto contain it, the verdict of time.
Frank McNabb never sought command,and he never lived long enough to
see what his leadership became.
He inherited a broken causeand tried to hold it together
through duty and instinct, butthe war had outgrown discipline.

(01:01:24):
His few weeks at the helm bridged thelast breath of purpose and the first
full grasp of chaos, a path that wouldlead straight to his own death and to
the final bloody reckoning in Lincoln,
after Dick Brewer fell at Blazer'sMill, the regulators buried their first
leader and turned again toward war.

(01:01:46):
They chose Frank McNabb to takethe reigns, quiet, capable, and
already proven in gun smoke.
He'd been a foreman, a lawman, andone of Tunsell's most trusted men.
If anyone could steady theband of Fugitive, still calling
themselves deputies, it was Frank.
Under McNabb, the regulatorstried to remember what the

(01:02:07):
fight was supposed to mean.
Justice for John Tunstall, notslaughter for its own sake.
Justice in Lincoln County had becomea corpse with too many hands on it.
Each week brought new raids,ambushes and retaliations.
Names scratched from both ledgers.
Before the ink was dry, the SevenRivers gang riding for Murphy and

(01:02:29):
Dolan, proud the valleys south of town.
McNabb led his men into that countryhunting killers who were hunting them.
On April 29th, 1878, the huntersbecame the hunted McNabb.
AB Sanders and Frank Coe rode nearFritz Ranch, unaware the Manuel

(01:02:50):
Segovia, Bob Beckwith and Dutch CharlieReeling waited in, ambush the first
volley, cut the morning in half.
McNabb took a bullet in thechest and dropped from his
saddle before he could draw.
Saunders was hit next badly woundedand CO was dragged off alive.
A prisoner of the verymin they'd been tracking.

(01:03:11):
By sundown word of McNabb's,death reached the others.
Another captain gone anothergrave with no marker.
And with each burial, the regulatorsgrew fewer angrier and less certain
of what they were still fighting for.
They gathered in hiding to choose again.
This time the choice fell onJosiah Gordon, doc Scurlock,

(01:03:35):
the educated one, the marksman,the calm voice amid the fever.
Scurlock wasn't the loudest gun, buthe was the sharpest mind left standing.
He took command in the middle of chaos,inheriting a company, half broken
and fully outlawed under scurlock.
The regulators pulled together longenough to survive the coming storm,

(01:03:58):
but they would face the siege ofLincoln, a five day inferno that
would decide the wars end and writeBilly the kids' legend in gunfire.
But in this moment.
In the rain At Fritz Ranch, theregulators understood what they'd become.
Three captains dead inless than two months.
Each one more desperate thanthe last, the verdict of time.

(01:04:22):
W. Frank McNabb never lived to see thejustice he rode for he died believing
the fight still had purpose, thoughhistory would prove it had already lost.
One.
His death marked the lastflicker of order before the war.
War burned into chaos, and as Doc Scurlocktook command, the regulators' cause
turned from righteousness to survival.

(01:04:44):
A company of ghosts chasing vengeancethrough the storm that would soon swallow.
Lincoln Hole.
When Frank McNabb fell at Fritz Ranch,the regulators buried their captain
under hard soil and harder silence.
But grief never lasted longin Lincoln County, it turned
too quickly to vengeance.

(01:05:04):
There was one name onevery man's lips that week.
Manuel Segovia.
Segovia was a seven Rivers warrior,a cowboy in gun hand riding for the
house, and the man most believed hadfired the shot that killed McMahon.
He hadn't hidden.
He'd gone home to Seven Rivers.
The outlaw settlement where Dolan'sallies gathered like wolves around

(01:05:27):
a carcass for the regulators thatmade him both target and message.
On May 15th, 1878, the regulatorswrote out no courtroom, no warrant,
just a handful of men with guns andthe memory of their dead captain.
They've bounced Segovia nearthe settlement accounts differ.

(01:05:48):
Some said he tried to run othersthat he never got the chance.
Either way, the rifle spokeand Manuel Segovia fell.
The official story claimed that hetried to escape, but Lincoln County
was gunned with official stories.
Everyone knew what it was.
A killing for.
A killing a frontier.

(01:06:08):
Execution thinly dressed as justice.
And with that single volley, theblood debt deepened in Seven Rivers.
The message was received.
The warriors and the housewriters swore their onos.
From this point on,nobody expected prisoners.
Every man on both sides slept with a gununder his coat and his boots on the floor.

(01:06:31):
The war had stoppedpretending it was about law.
Now it was about revenge,naked and personal.
Somewhere in that smoke andgunpowder haze, a new face
appeared among the regulators.
Tom oal, younger than most loyal toa fault, and he'd soon become Billy.
The kid's shadow, the man who rodeclosest when the rest began to fall away.

(01:06:56):
He joined them in the spring of 78,just as Billy's name started to mean a
little something more than just trouble.
With each funeral and eachgunfight, Billy's voice carried
a little farther by summer.
He wasn't just a fighter.
He was the spark, the verdict of time.
The killing of ManuelSegovia didn't end anything.

(01:07:19):
It just carved anothernotch into the ledger.
Each side told itself.
The other fired first thatjustice rode with their gun.
But by May of 1878, justice waslong dead in Lincoln County.
What remained was survival andthe countdown to the final siege
where every name left alive wouldhave to stand, shoot, or burn.

(01:07:43):
Inside the town of Lincoln,
by the spring of 78, Lincoln Countywas bleeding from a hundred wounds.
The law wore too many faces,and none of them were clean.
The regulators once sworn officers hadbecome fugitives the house, once merchants

(01:08:03):
had turned into warlords and somewherebetween the two wrote a 19-year-old
kid with a borrowed rifle and a tasteof justice gon sour Billy, the kid had
started the years a ranch hand under Fed.
Underestimated, still hoping for alife that didn't end with a bullet.
But every grave, tonst Brewer,McNabb carved away another

(01:08:28):
piece of who he'd been by May.
He wasn't just fighting forhis boss or his friends.
He was fighting because hedidn't know how to stop.
Seven rivers ran red and Lincolnbraced for whatever came next.
Each Don brought anotherrumor, soldiers on the road.
Dolan Men riding East McSwen, stockpiling guns.

(01:08:53):
Every door in town was bolted.
Every family waiting for the soundthat meant it had finally begun.
The verdict of time says this.
There were no heroes left.
By the summer of 78, only survivors,the regulators called it justice.
The house called it order, buthistory calls it what it was.
Revenge set loose on the frontier.

(01:09:15):
And in that chaos, Billy, thekid, found the one thing the
law could never take from him.
His legend born in gunfire, tempered ingrief, and carried on the wind to every
saloon that ever whispered his name.
Next time the waiting ends, Lincolnwill burn, the war will break

(01:09:39):
open, and the boy from nowherewill finally step into history.
The Lincoln County War had startedas a clash of ledgers and contracts.
By the spring of 78, it was nothing butdust, blood, and names carved into wood.
Billy, the kid was nolonger just a hired hand.
He became the living symbol ofa county tearing itself apart.

(01:10:04):
Every trigger pulled in Lincolnechoed across the territory, and
there were plenty more yet to come.

Angela (01:10:12):
Each step deeper into this war blurred the line between law
and outlaw, justice and revenge.
For the people living through it.
There was no black or white just survivalin a place where the law answered to
the highest bidder and with every gravethat filled the shadow of what was
coming through darker over Lincoln.

John (01:10:34):
Next time on Galls and Gunfights, we'll step into that storm.
Five days of siege, fire andbetrayal that would leave Lincoln
burning and Billy the Kid.
A legend.
It's the battle that endedone war and started another.
The moment when everything thatcould be lost was, and the boy

(01:10:55):
they called Billy became the outlawthe world would never forget.

Angela (01:11:00):
If you've been writing with us through the dust and the gun
smoke, don't forget to follow darkdialogue, gallows and gunfights.
Wherever you listen, youcan support the show.
Explore Case Archives and join the DarkDialogue collective@darkdialogue.com.
And if you believe in keeping History'sghost talking, share the show.
Leave a review or support us on Substackor Coffee to help keep these stories alive

John (01:11:25):
from the frontier towns where the law wore a badge
by day and a mass by night.
This is dark dialogue, gallows andgunfights, where we let the past take the
stand and the guilty face, the gallows.

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Billy the Kid Part 5: The Road to Lincoln – The Return of the Kid

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Billy the Kid Part 5: The Road to Lincoln – The Return of the Kid