December 21, 2025 • 47 mins
On the second day of a siege, the gunfire matters less than the waiting.
Day Two of the Battle of Lincoln (July 16, 1878) does not erupt—it calcifies. The town seals itself shut. Civilians barricade behind adobe walls. Gunmen hold positions they cannot abandon. And law enforcement, unable to compel surrender, begins looking upward for force it cannot legally command.
In this episode of Gallows & Gunfights, we examine Day Two of the Lincoln siege not as a shootout, but as a stress test applied to authority itself.
Inside the McSween house, Billy the Kid and the Regulators hold their ground under sustained but calculated fire. Outside, Sheriff George Peppin and the Murphy–Dolan faction confront an uncomfortable reality: numbers and badges are no longer enough.
This episode covers:
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The full tactical stalemate of Day Two
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Civilian confinement and the transformation of homes into firing positions
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Billy the Kid’s role as a fixed defensive force
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The request for federal artillery—and its legal denial
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The firing upon a U.S. Army courier
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How accusation, not evidence, reshaped the narrative
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Why restraint—not bloodshed—became the hinge point of the siege
By nightfall, no ground has changed hands. But the conflict no longer belongs solely to Lincoln.
This is not myth. This is record.
🔔 SUPPORT & PRESERVATIONIf you value evidence-driven historical accountability, you can support this work at:
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Help preserve the names erased by frontier violence at www.darkdialogue.com
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John (00:11):
The court is now in session on the second day of a siege.
The gunfire matters less than thewaiting day one announces violence.
Day two reveals intent.
This is the hour when men discoverwhether their cause can survive,
silence, thirst, and fear.
Whether power rests in patients orwhether inpatients will reach for
(00:35):
something larger, heavier, and harderto control the record before this
court does not open with motion.
It opens with immobility.
Lincoln does not weaken onthis morning as a battlefield.
It wakes as a trapped organism, homessealed windows, boarded streets, evacuated
(00:56):
of commerce, conversation, and mercy.
The town is no longer lived in it isendured an endurance, your Honor, is where
the truth begins to leak through the myth.
Because a siege is not simplyan exchange of gunfire.
It is a referendum on authority.
Inside the Mc Sween house,the regulators do not advance.
(01:19):
They do not flee.
They hold, and in holding,they force the lot in front.
An uncomfortable question.
What happens when lawful power cannot movea single house from its position Outside?
Badges remain visible.
Deputies remain armed.
Numbers remain superior, andyet the town does not bend.
(01:40):
The defenders do not scatter.
The walls do not answer to intimidation.
This is not a story of chaos.
It is a story of restraint,pressed to its breaking point.
By the second day, violence becomesless expressive and more bureaucratic.
The rage of the streetgives way to the memorandum.
Requests, justifications, appeals.
(02:02):
Upward when bullets failto resolve authority.
Authority seeks validation from ahigher shelf, and here the indictment
sharpens because the law's responseto stalemate is not reflection.
Its escalation.
The question before the jury is notwhether the regulators were saints.
That argument does not survive the record.
(02:23):
The question is whether theinstitution's meant to contain
violence instead, widened its reach.
When civilian streets become firinglanes, when families become collateral,
when hunger and thirst replacewarrants and testimony, at what point
does law cease to be governance?
And become merely another armed factiondistinguished only by letterhead.
(02:47):
The court contends that day two iswhere the battle stops being local,
not because the shots grow louder, butbecause the desperation does on this day.
Authority does not askhow to end the siege.
It asks who else might end it for them.
And once that question is asked,once federal power is even
contemplated, the siege has alreadybreached its most dangerous wall.
(03:11):
Not Adobe, not timber, but restraint.
The prosecution submits that daytwo is not defined by bloodshed.
It is defined by erosion of patients,of jurisdiction of the boundary
between civil order and military force.
Billy, the kid remains alive onthis date, so do his enemies.
(03:31):
So do the civilians, cut between them?
Something else does not survive intact.
The idea that this conflict can remaincontained, the record will show what
happens when stalemate attempts powerto borrow weight it cannot legally
carry, and whether the law in seekingto end lawlessness instead invited
something far more final into Lincoln.
(03:53):
The court now calls day two to the stand.
Members of the jury, thisproceeding resumes with the
record already under pressure.
Part seven enters day two of theLincoln County War's most infamous
siege, not to re-litigate how it beganand not to rush toward how it ends,
(04:14):
but to examine what holding looks likewhen neither side can afford to move.
Today's scope is narrow by design.
This court will not renderverdicts in this session.
This court will not dramatizegunfights for their own sake.
This court will instead examineconditions we will place before you.
The physical facts of a town undersuspension, thirst, ammunition,
(04:38):
fear, patience, and command.
Authority stretch thinby time rather than fire.
We will examine how the mc Sween housebecomes less a refuge than a fixed
legal problem, one that the law cannotsolve without revealing its own limits.
You'll hear testimony not in voices,but in actions, in who advances and who
(04:58):
waits, and who possesses numbers andwho possesses position in how official
authority behaves when it cannotcompel obedience without consequence.
This episode functions asevidence and proceedings.
No verdicts will be issued.
No moral accounting will be finalized.
Instead, the record will be expanded layerby layer until the siege can be understood
(05:21):
not as a standoff between men, but asa stress test applied to law itself.
You, the jury, are asked tolisten, not for heroism or villain,
but for institutional behavior.
When law enforcement isforced into immobility, what
tools does it reach for next?
When violence pauses, doeswisdom enter or does impatience?
(05:46):
As always, this court remindsyou myth survives on speed.
History survives on restraint.
A brief matter before the court, ifyou find this record worth preserving.
If you believe stories like these deservecareful examination rather than inherited
legend, your decision to follow, rate andreview this program materially affects
(06:07):
whether this work remains visible.
Algorithms reward, noisereviews, reward diligence.
This court depends on the latter.
With that entered, the jury isinstructed to set aside conclusions
and attend only to conditions.
They too will not announceitself with spectacle.
It will speak through delay,discomfort, and decisions deferred.
(06:29):
The proceedings will now continue.
I enter into evidence at sunrise onTuesday, July 16th, 1878, day two of the
Lincoln Siege, the town wakes sealed.
Every house still occupied by non-concombatant civilians is boarded
shut, doors barred windows, nailedcurtains, and blankets pulled tight.
(06:53):
From the street, Lincoln appearsabandoned from the inside.
It is inhabited by peopleholding their breath.
The record shows no open thresholds,no figures moving between buildings.
No morning commerce, no animalsdriven to water, no children
released into the street.
What remains visible isarchitecture under constraint.
(07:13):
Adobe walls popped with fresh scars,boards hastily nailed across windows.
And the long single roadlying empty under first light.
Inside these homes,civilians are not sheltering.
They're entombed.
Families have withdrawn into interiorrooms away from the exterior walls.
Furniture is stacked.
(07:34):
Mattresses leaned upright, trunkshoved into corners to thicken.
Adobe already asked to domore than it was built for.
The record does not showorganized evacuation.
It shows adaptation under fire.
Thirst is alreadypresent, so is exhaustion.
Most civilians have been dirtyfull day and night of sporadic
shooting wells in the river areunreachable without exposure.
(07:57):
Lamps are kept low orextinguished entirely.
Windows, even when boardedare treated as liabilities, a
silhouette is an invitation.
A sound can become a target.
The acoustics of the town shift riflecracks, echo, sharply off sealed facades.
The absence of the normal morning noise.
Voices, wagons, livestock, creates avacuum that gunfire repeatedly punctures.
(08:23):
Silence does not calmthe town it sharpens it.
At first light, the tactical arrangementestablished on day one holds the primary
regulator stronghold remains the MCsSwen house at the west end of town.
Additional regulator elementsoccupy fortified structures,
including the Montano store andallied positions farther east.
(08:45):
These positions do not advance.
They consolidate.
Opposing them.
Pepins Murphy Dolan forceoccupies key buildings, corrals
and rifle pits, commanding thestreet and approaches to the MCs.
Swen block overnight and into theearly morning, some Dolan men shift
into nearby civilian houses, homes,belonging to ham meals and Juan Chavez,
(09:07):
among them, transforming domesticspaces into forward firing posts, the
net tightens without moving forward.
The testimony is this, this conversion ofhomes into positions is not incidental.
It places civilians between lines of fire,even when those civilians remain inside.
(09:27):
The laws present spreads laterally,not decisively, occupying space.
Without resolving authority, thesiege becomes architectural control
is measured in walls, not warrants.
Inside the MCs, Swen house,the air is already stale.
Plaster does clings to floors and corners.
Exterior windows have been shot outor deliberately converted into firing
(09:49):
ports, sandbags and stacked adobe form.
Crude breastworks ammunitionis checked and rechecked.
Men rotate through themost exposed loopholes.
No one has rested.
Women inside the house remainprimarily in interior rooms, but the
record shows their labor persists.
Water carried minor wounds tendedorder maintained where possible.
(10:12):
The boundary between combatantand non-combatant is present in
principle and eroding in practice.
At Sunrise, Billy the kid, William hBonnie is inside the MCs Swen house
with the core regulator contingent.
The house functions simultaneouslyas fortress and nerve center.
Billy is not withdrawn.
He's active, moving between firingpositions, watching Dolan, health
(10:36):
houses near mills and Chavezmonitoring approaches toward the
wortley in the house complex.
The record does not place him asleep.
It places him vigilant, coordinatingoverlapping fire, ensuring
no position is left uncoveredlong enough to invite a rush.
His role is informal but evident.
(10:56):
An aggressive defenderoperating under constraint.
Ammunition is finite.
Exposure is constant.
Movement is punished.
No Dawn assault comes noorder breaks the stalemate.
Instead, both sidesobserve, measure, and wait.
The town remains sealed, not byproclamation, but by fear and gunfire.
(11:19):
Authority is present in numbers andbadges, yet unable to compel the
opening of a single civilian door.
At sunrise on day two,Lincoln exists in suspension.
Civilian life is immobilized.
Tactical lines remain fixed.
Combatants hold, rather than advancethe siege, exerts pressure without
(11:39):
resolution, converting homes intobarriers and silence into a weapon.
The conditions of confinement,physical, legal, and moral
are now fully established.
By full daylight onTuesday, July 16th, 1878.
The siege resumes, its workshooting restarts, not as a
charge, but as an obligation.
(12:01):
In exchange that neither sidecan abandon without consequence.
The record reflects hundreds of shotsfired the morning and into the day.
Not in sweeping assaults, but in cycles.
Exposure, response, silence, repetition.
This is no battle of movement.
It's a contest of endurance.
(12:21):
The regulators remainfixed in their strongholds.
The McSweeney house continuesto anchor their defense.
Its rooms converted into firing chambers.
Its windows reduced to loopholes, otherregulator positions, most notably, the
Montano premises and Allied buildingsfarther along the street, remain occupied,
but the tactical gravity of the day pullseverything back toward McSweeney's walls.
(12:45):
Men fired deliberately.
Ammunition is finite.
Each shot is weighed againstreturn fire from the Murphy Dolan
Positions scattered through housescorrals and improvised raffle pits.
When a figure crosses openground rifles answer immediately.
When no movement presents itself,the town falls into tense, quiet,
(13:06):
broken, only by wind in theoccasional crack of a long range shot.
Opposing them.
Pepins Murphy Dolan forces use themorning to tighten its perimeter.
The Posse augmented by Dolan men,seven Rivers fighters and Jesse Evans
gunman consolidates into better covercivilian houses near the MCs Swen
(13:26):
place, including those belongingto ham Mills and Juan Chavez.
They're occupied andrepurposed into forward firing.
This domestic wallsbecome part of the siege.
Sharp shooters take advantage ofelevation where it can be found.
Upper stories, rooftopsand hills behind town.
Raking the McSwain housewhenever movement betrays itself.
(13:48):
This is harassment by by designto exhaust, to provoke to test
patients without risking a rush.
The record notes at least onecasualty of the Murphy Dolan site.
During these hours, William Johnson ofthe Seven Rivers Group, is struck in the
neck and forced to ride for medical care.
At Fort Stanton, the wound registersthe cost of even cautious exposure.
(14:13):
Inside civilian homes, the daytimebrings no relief, though most houses
remain boarded and silent, riflefire continues to punch through wood
and Adobe families remain pinned tothe interior rooms, counting shots,
ratcheting water listening, asthe valley amplifies every report.
The distinction between battlefieldand household grows thinner
(14:34):
with every hour of daylight.
Throughout the morning and daytime,Billy the kid remains inside the McSwain
house with the core regulator contingent.
He does not range through town.
His world is the interiorperimeter of the building.
The record places him cyclingbetween firing positions,
window to window, room to room.
(14:55):
Covering exposed angles and watchingDolan health houses across the street.
His firing is controlled.
Shots are aimed at visible targets.
Men move between the Wortley housecomplex and nearby structures, or
sharp shooters momentarily, carelessin mills's or chavez's houses.
After firing, he withdraws behind Adobe toreload, avoiding predictable patterns that
(15:18):
would invite concentrated return fire.
When not at a loophole, hemoves through the house.
Checking on the other men, sharingobservations from where fire is heaviest,
helping redistribute defenders toprevent any single wall from becoming
the obvious point of collapse.
His role is not commandby title, but by activity.
(15:40):
No frontal assault materializes.
The Murphy Dolan forces probe andharass, but does not commit the
regulators answer fire but do not.
Sorting each side measuresthe other through dust.
Heat, shimmer and soundauthority is present everywhere.
Decisive nowhere.
Through the morning and daytimeof day two, the battle settles
(16:01):
into a sustained exchange ofgunfire without territorial change.
Physicians hold fire is continuous,but calculated Civilian risk
persists under daylight conditions.
The siege advances not by movement,but by attrition, testing, ammunition,
nerves, and the limits of restraintwithout resolving control of the town.
(16:25):
At the second day's daylight, therecord shows recognition, not victory.
Sheriff Pepin and the Murphy Dolanleadership assessed the field
and reach a shared conclusion.
The siege has stabilized against them.
The regulators remaincontained but not displaced.
The MCs Swen house stillholds fire, has not produced.
(16:45):
Surrender numbers havenot produced movement.
This acknowledgementdoes not come publicly.
It arrives privately in the languageof memorandum rather than gunfire.
The exchange of shots has clarifiedrather than confuse the situation.
The regulator's advantage ispositional and psychological.
Their defenses are intact.
(17:06):
The fire remains disciplined.
The surrounding force can harassand contain, but it cannot compel
the house to open without cost.
Daylight exposes thelimits of intimidation.
The law faced with immobilityreframes the problem.
The question shifts from how toarrest to how to force an end.
(17:27):
During the daytime hours.
George Pepin, newly appointedsheriff rates A brief note to
Nathan Dudley at Fort Stanton.
The request is specific,the loan of a Howitzer.
The stated belief is not that theartillery will be fired, it is the
threat of artillery will suffice,that the mere presence of federal
(17:48):
ordinance will coerce surrender wheredeputies and posses have failed.
This communication is nota battlefield maneuver.
It is an institutional escalation.
The sheriff does not ask for mediation.
He does not request additional deputies.
He requests a military instrumentdesigned for siege warfare.
(18:08):
The note itself is modest in length,but expansive In implication, it assumes
that civil authority may borrow militaryweight to resolve a civilian standoff.
It assumes that fear of annihilationcan substitute for lawful process.
It further assumes that federalpower once invoked, can be
contained by intention alone.
(18:29):
The record does not show that this requestis accompanied by warrants, judicial
review, or civilian evacuation plans.
It shows urgency framed as necessity.
The timing matters.
This request is made while civiliansremain sealed inside their homes,
while gunfire continues intermittently.
While the regulators have not attemptedbreakout or expansion, the stalemate
(18:53):
has not deteriorated into chaos.
It is merely resisted resolution.
In choosing artillery is leverage.
The law acknowledgesits own insufficiency.
The Howitzer is not a policing tool.
It is a statement that authorityis willing to widen the scale of
force rather than accept delay.
This is not yet action.
(19:15):
It is intent committed to paper.
By day two's daylight SheriffPepin formally recognizes the
siege as a stalemate, unfavorableto the immediate enforcement.
His written request of FortStatin introduces the prospect
of federal military involvementas psychological coercion.
The condition of the conflictremains unchanged on the ground,
(19:36):
but the judicial boundary governingits resolution has begun to shift.
In the late afternoon of Tuesday,July the 16th, sheriff Pepins
Courier reaches Fort Stanton.
The note he carries is brief and urgent.
It frames Lincoln as a townunder threat from lawless force.
It proposes a solution not of arrest, butof intimidation, the loan of a Howitzer.
(20:01):
The premise is simple artilleryneed not be fired if its shadow
alone can end resistance.
The request is placed beforeNathan Dudley, a federal officer,
already aware that Lincoln hasbeen sliding toward open conflict.
Dudley reads the letter with context.
The town itself no longer possesses.
This is not the first appealto reach Fort Stanton.
(20:23):
Complaints have arrived frommultiple directions, lawman
factions, civilians, each claimingnecessity, each claiming urgency.
The record reflects that deadly is notignorant of suffering in Lincoln, nor
indifferent to civilian danger, but thelaw stands between sympathy and action.
As a United States Army officer,deadly is bound by federal restrictions
(20:45):
that forbid military participationin local civil disturbances.
Loaning a Howitzer to a county sherifffor use against entrenched civilians
and local combatants would constitutedirect military intervention.
In a private war, it would place federalforce squarely on one faction side.
(21:05):
The request, however, carefullyworded, crosses that line.
Deadly drafts a reply.
The denial is formal,restrained, and unambiguous.
He informs George Pep andthat he cannot comply.
The law does not permithim to loan artillery.
Federal weapons cannot be usedto resolve a civilian standoff.
Regardless of how dire the circumstancesappear, the tone is not conciliatory.
(21:31):
It's firm.
The refusal is legal, not negotiable.
This is not passivity.
It's containment deadly understandsthat providing a Howitzer would
not merely threaten the regulators.
It would redraw jurisdictional boundaries.
Once artillery enters theequation, the conflict ceases to
be local in any meaningful sense.
(21:53):
The record shows Deadly'sfrustration beneath the restraint.
Local authorities have allowed thesituation to metastasize into siege
warfare, then turn to the army tofinish what civil power could not.
He refuses the weapon, but the denialhardens his view that Lincoln has become
unmanageable under its own institutions.
(22:14):
The lo blocks one door.
It does not steal his his attention.
Deadly sends the denial backtowards Lincoln by Messenger.
The letter travelswhile gunfire continues.
It moves through a landscape alreadydivided by lines of fire and fear while
the exchange unfolds at Fort Staten.
The conditions inside Lincolndo not pause to accommodate
(22:36):
it inside the McSweeney house.
Billy, the kid remains engaged in the samedefensive routine established at dawn.
He rotates between firing ports.
He watches Dolan held houses for movement.
He conserves ammunition.
He prepares for escalation withoutknowing how near it already is.
He is not consulted, he is not informed.
(22:58):
His world remains adobe dust and riflesmoke by late afternoon on day two.
The request for artillery hasbeen formally denied federal law
prevents the loan of the Howitzer,and no military aid is authorized
for offensive use in Lincoln.
On the ground, nothing changes.
The siege continues uninterrupted,but institutionally, the
exchange marks a turning point.
(23:19):
Civil authority has asked formilitary force and been refused,
revealing both the limits of the lawand the pressure building behind it.
Approximately 6:30 PM on Tuesday, thebureaucratic machinery surrounding
the Lincoln Siege begins to movefrom Fort Staton Barry Robinson,
(23:40):
a private in the United StatesArmy, departs a loan on horseback.
He carries a sealed note from NathanDudley address to George Pepin.
The message he bears is a denial.
Robinson's orders are narrow.
Deliver the letter.
Nothing more.
The document contains Dudley'srefusal to loan Howitzer, an assertion
of legal boundary in a conflictthat has already tested them.
(24:03):
Yet the route Robinson takesis anything but administrative.
He rides West into a regionalready conditioned for violence.
The road between Fort Staten and Lincolnis familiar ground, but on this evening,
it leads toward an active siege.
Both factions inside Lincoln hasspent the day firing at movement.
(24:23):
Shadows are suspect riders aretargets until proven otherwise,
Robinson travels without escort,without banner, and without the
protection that daylight affords.
The timing ensures that he willreach Lincoln near or after dark.
The purpose of Robinson'smission is formal notification.
Pepin is to be informed thatfederal artillery will not be lit
(24:47):
for use against the McSwain houseon paper, this ends the request.
In practice, it advances something else.
A federal witness enters the field.
By sending an enlisted man into anactive combat zone, deadly remains
technically compliant with the lawwhile placing the army one step
closer to direct entanglement, therecord shows restraint and policy
(25:11):
paired with exposure and execution.
Robinson's presence in Lincoln willmatter beyond the letter itself.
His observations, what he sees, whathe hears, what he later reports will
become part of the institutionalnarrative surrounding the siege.
His ride is not neutral.
It's evidentiary.
(25:33):
At the moment of departure,Dudley has not authorized troops.
He has not crossed the line that he justdefended on paper, but he has allowed
the conflict to touch the army directlyif only through a single messenger.
As Robinson rides conditions insideLincoln remain unchanged within the
mc Sween house, Billy the kid andthe regulators continue the defensive
(25:55):
routine established throughout the day.
Men rotate through firing ports.
Visibility deteriorates.
Silhouettes, replace faces.
Ammunition is conserved.
Waters scarce.
Fatigue accumulates The house preparesnot for correspondence, but for night.
Billy has no knowledgeof the letter in transit.
(26:15):
He does not know that theartillery has been requested
and denied from his position.
The only facts that exist are thesame ones that have defined the day.
Dolan held houses across the street,intermittent gunfire, and the certainty
that darkness will not bring peace.
The siege does not announcebureaucratic shifts.
It registers only force.
(26:37):
At approximately six 30, a federalcourier departs Fort Staten carrying
a formal denial of artillery support.
The message moves toward Lincolnas daylight fades, bridging civil
authority and military presencethrough a single rider on the ground.
The siege remains unchanged, but theinstitutional distance between local
(26:57):
conflict and federal involvement hasnarrowed even further without either
side inside Lincoln yet knowing it.
Just before sundown, Barry Robinsonreaches the Western approach to Lincoln.
He is still carrying Nathan Dudley'swritten denial of the Howitzer request.
He's still alone, and now he'sentering a town where movement
(27:17):
itself has become suspect.
The record places Robinson within riflerange of multiple armed positions.
Regulator and Murphy don't wannalike at a moment when nerves are
frayed and daylight is failing.
As Robinson rides in from the west,several shots crack out towards him.
The record fractures here on attributionhistory does not offer a clean answer
(27:42):
as to who fired whether the regulatorsmistook him for a Dolan writer.
Dolan then mistook him fora regulator or unaffiliated.
Gunman reacted to motionwithout identification.
What the record does show is consequence.
Robinson's horse reacts violently,whether struck or spooked.
If throws him, Robinsonhits the ground under fire.
(28:04):
He's not wounded.
He regains control.
He remounts.
The ride continues.
Despite the incident, Robinsonpresses into town and makes
his way to the Wortley Hotel.
A central node of the Murphy Dolanactivity where he reaches James Dolan
and delivers Dudley's written refusal.
The denial is now in local hands.
(28:26):
Robinson's account doesnot end with delivery.
In later reports, he emphasizes that hewas fired upon while entering Lincoln.
An armed soldier on officialduty, unhorsed by gunfire.
The phrasing matters.
It reframes the siege, not merelyas a civil standoff, but as a
place where federal personnel areno longer immune to its violence.
(28:49):
For Dolan's faction alreadyfrustrated by stalemate in refusal.
Robinson's experience becomesconfirmation rather than anomaly.
The letter denies artillery,the ride supplies grievance.
During these moments inside the MCs Swenhouse, Billy the Kidd remains at his post.
He and the other regulators continuetheir late day routine watching
(29:10):
Dolan held houses, trading occasionalshots, conserving ammunition, bracing
for the uncertainties of nightfall.
No maneuver is attempted.
No message reaches them.
Any shots heard from the Westernedge of town register only as more
gunfire in a day already definedby it from within McSwain's Walls.
(29:31):
Robinson's fall is indistinguishablefrom any other burst of violence.
There is no indication that Billyor the regulators understand in
that moment that a single writer'sexperience will later be cited as
evidence that soldiers were fired upon.
The siege does not announceits turning points.
It buries them inside routine.
(29:53):
The proceedings findings before sundown.
On day two, a federal courier enteringLincoln is fired upon, thrown from his
horse, and nonetheless completes hisdelivery to the Murphy Dolan leadership.
The ground situation remains unchanged.
Regulators hold the seizures,contain civilians remain trapped.
Institutionally.
(30:14):
However, the incident introduces anew claim into the record that federal
personnel have been exposed to hostilefire altering how the siege will be
interpreted beyond Lincoln Streets.
In the evening hours inside theWortley Hotel, the Robinson incident
is given a name and an origin.
James Dolan informs Barry Robinson thatthe shots fired at him came from the
(30:38):
regulators inside the MCs Swen house.
The assertion is immediate.
It is stated as fact Robinsondoes not challenge the claim.
He's unfamiliar with the precisegeometry of Lincoln's firing lines.
He has just been unhorsed under fire.
He has no immediate means ofidentifying where the shots
originated in this condition.
(30:59):
He accepts Dolan's explanationwithout investigation.
The record notes competing possibilities.
Men aligned with Dolan were postedat the house building and around
the Wortley itself, positions thatalso commanded the Western approach.
Confusion, misidentificationor self-interested framing
cannot be excluded.
(31:20):
History offers noballistic certainty here.
What matters is not what can beproven, but what is accepted.
Robinson completes his mission.
He delivers Nathan Dudley's writtendenial to George Pepin and Dolan.
The Howitzer will not be provided.
The question is closed.
Another opens.
Pepin and Dolan now possess twoconverging elements, a federal
(31:42):
refusal that frustrates theirattempted escalation and a soldier's
account that he was fired upon.
Now attributed to the regulators.
Together, these form a narrative.
The conversation at theWortley is no longer tactical.
It's political.
The regulators are reframed, not merelyas armed men resisting arrest, but as
(32:04):
aggressors who have fired on a uniformedrepresentative of the United States Army.
This distinction mattersprofoundly beyond Lincoln Streets.
The claim does notrequire proof to function.
It requires repetition.
I enter into evidence during these sameevening hours inside the MCs Swen house.
(32:25):
Billy, the kid remainsunaware of this reframing.
He and the other regulators continue theirdefensive posture under sporadic fire.
They rotate through loopholes.
They manage fatigue, thirst,and dwindling comfort.
Their attention is fixed outwardon Dolan held houses on movement
in the darkening street.
No message reaches them.
(32:46):
No accusation is deliveredfrom inside the Adobe walls.
The Robinson incident registers onlyas another burst of gunfire among many.
The testimony is this.
Billy does not know that this eveninghis position is being named as the
source of fire on a US soldier.
He does not know that thisattribution will soon travel
(33:07):
back to Fort Staton as fact.
He remains a defendantwithout notice accused.
In absentee the sea teaches mento listen for bullets, not words.
The findings are this.
By the evening of day two, the firingincident involving a federal courier
has been formally attributed withoutinvestigation to the regulators.
(33:28):
In Mc Sween House, Colonel Dudley's denialof artillery has been delivered, but
its impact is eclipsed by a new claim.
The US military personnelhave come under fire.
On the ground, nothing changes.
Institutionally, the conflicts narrativehas shifted, laying the groundwork
for direct military involvement.
(33:48):
As night falls, George Pepin issuesorders for his men to continue firing
into knowing regulator positions.
The instruction is nottactical in in ambition.
It is pressure applied for its own sake.
Harassment meant to remind the besiegethat encirclement remains intact.
The shot strike.
Adobe and wood windows shatter furtherwalls chip, no breach is achieved.
(34:14):
I enter into testimony.
The darkness strips the gunfireof effectiveness, targets vanish.
Returns diminish.
Ammunition is conserved.
What remains is noise and fear.
Psychological force in placeof physical gain over time.
Even this tapers off rifles fall.
Quiet men on both sidesredraw into their shelters.
(34:37):
The silence that replacesgunfire is not peace.
It is vigilance without release.
I enter into evidence that inside theMCs, Swen house conditions have worsened.
Heat lingers in the battered adobe smokeand plastered dust clinging in the air.
Water is nearly gone.
Thirst has, has begun toimpair judgment and strength.
(34:59):
Men have slept only in fragments, rifleswithin arms, reach bodies slumped against
walls or floors Among them, is Billy thekid still rotating watch, still prepared
for a night rush that never comes.
The households, but atincreasing human cost.
With firing cease, thethirst becomes critical.
(35:20):
A decision is made thatcarries no tactical advantage
and immense personal risk.
Susan Gates, accompanied by some of theshield children, leaves the cover of
the MCs Swen House After Night Faultto fetch water from the Rio Bonito.
They go unarmed.
They move quietly.
Knowing that any misinterpretation couldbe fatal, no regulator escorts them.
(35:43):
Armed protection couldmark them as combatants.
I enter into evidence that as theymake their way to the river and back
dolan's, men do not fire whether fromrestraint, custom, or exhaustion,
the armed perimeter holds its fire.
The women and children returnunharmed carrying water back
into the besieged house.
(36:04):
This act alters no positions.
It resolves no claims.
The testimony is this.
Inside McSweeney's walls, thewater brings brief relief.
Men drink the most debilitatedrecovery enough to continue.
Gratitude is present, but sois the understanding that mercy
is temporary and conditional.
(36:26):
The defenders know the gesturedoes not signal leniency to come.
It signals only that the nightfor the moment has spared them.
Across town Pepins men rest uneasily.
They have not broken the stronghold.
They know federal attention is sharpening.
The stalemate persists, and withit the risk that the conflict
(36:47):
will soon exceed local control.
Through the night of day two, the gunfirediminishes and ceases without resolution.
The siege continues undersilence, thirst and exhaustion.
A brief humanitarian passage to the riverallows water to reach the MCs Swen house
temporarily sustaining its defenders.
(37:08):
Tactical conditions remain unchanged.
Human strain deepens on both sides asthe conflict pauses without ending.
As the night deepens and slidestoward early morning on Wednesday,
July 17th, the siege tightensinto into two separate places.
One in Lincoln, one miles away.
(37:28):
At Fort Staton, both move independently,both move towards the same consequence.
Inside the mc swing house, at least twowindows have now been completely shot out.
These are no longer firing ports.
They are voids.
Glass is gone, frames are chewed away.
Night air moves freely through theopenings carrying dust, and the
(37:50):
awareness that nothing now interruptsbullets path, but distance and luck.
Defenders pull back from these exposures.
Furniture is dragged.
Trunks are stacked.
Blankets and boards arepressed into service.
Not to stop rifle fire,but to reduce visibility.
The house is still standing,but its margin of safety
(38:11):
is shrinking room by room.
The damage builds each destroyedwindow registers, not merely as loss
of material, but as loss of option.
Inside Billy, the kid and theremaining regulators continue rotating.
Watch through safe loopholes.
Exhaustion is no longer episodic.
It's constant.
(38:31):
Men confer quietly.
Rifles are checked, ammunition is counted.
Again.
Billy's role in thesehours is not dramatic.
It's managerial.
He checks positions, he confers with MCs,swen, and the more experienced fighters.
He helps decide which roomsmust remain manned and which
must be abandoned is untenable.
(38:52):
There is no expectation of relief.
Only the discipline of holdinguntil forced otherwise.
The water fetched earlier haspostponed, collapsed, but not cured.
It.
Thirst remains close.
Sleep comes only in fragments.
Every new hole in the walls reinforcesthe understanding that, that the house
is being slowly opened by attrition.
(39:14):
While Lincoln contracts inward eventsat Fort Sta and expand outward,
Barry Robinson returns from Lincolnand reports to Nathan Dudley.
His account is emphatic.
He states that he was nearlyshot while entering town.
He identifies the fires comingfrom the regulators near the
McSwain house, repeating theattribution given to him in Lincoln.
(39:37):
The report is delivered as fact.
The effect on deadly is immediate.
The legal restraint that hemaintained earlier in the day
collides with a different obligation.
The safety and honor of his command,what had been a civil disturbance now
appears through Robinson's report asa place where a federal soldier can
(39:57):
be fired upon while carrying orders.
That distinction mattersprofoundly within military culture.
Late that night, moving into theearly hours of July 17th, Dudley
convenes a meeting with his officers.
They review what they know, theongoing siege, the presence of women
and children under fire, the failureof local law to resolve the conflict.
(40:20):
And now the claim that a USsoldier has been targeted.
The legal barriers remain,but the context has changed.
By the end of this conference,a decision has been reached.
The officers agree that theywill ride into Lincoln at dawn.
Officially, the purpose isinvestigation and protection.
Practically, it is the assertionof federal presence where
(40:43):
local authority has failed.
Troops will go, artillerywill accompany them.
This decision is made while theMCs Swen house sets in darkness.
Its windows blown out.
Its defenders unaware.
Billy, the kid does notknow that miles away.
His position has becomecentral to a report that will
justify military movement.
(41:04):
He listens instead For footsteps,for gunfire, for the creek of boards.
Two worlds move at once, onecontracts, and one advances.
In the late night and early morninghours, bridging July 16th into July
17th, the MCs Swen house sustainsfurther structural exposure,
(41:24):
increasing risk to its defenders.
Simultaneously, a federal reportalleging gunfire directed at a US
soldier prompts Colonel Dudley andhis officers to decide on direct
military entry into Lincoln at dawn.
The sea remains unresolved on the ground,but the conditions governing it has
shifted decisively beyond local control.
(41:49):
The court reconvenes notto resolve, but to reckon.
Day two ends without a charge,without a surrender, without a
body carried from the street.
And yet this day extracts itstoll with precision, windows are
removed, water becomes currency.
Words become weapons.
Authority begins to speak less throughlaw and more through proximity to force.
(42:13):
The record is clear on one point.
Nothing decisive happensin Lincoln on this day.
By accident.
The regulators do not advancebecause they cannot afford to.
The procedures do not withdraw becausethey cannot explain retreat and the law.
Facing a house, it cannot move,does not pause to reflect.
It looks upward.
(42:35):
This is where the myth fractures, popularmemory frames sieges as contests of
firepower, courage or criminal daring.
But the record before the court showssomething quieter and more corrosive.
It shows erosion.
It shows how stalemate temptsinstitutions to redefine necessity,
how uncertainty invites escalation,dressed as investigation.
(42:59):
How accusation.
Once spoken and repeated becomesoperational truth regardless of proof.
On this night, Billy, the kiddoes not expand his legend.
He shrinks into a house withfewer windows than it had at dawn.
He becomes less outlaw and more fixed.
Point an object around which othersmaneuver, narrate and justify the law
(43:23):
meanwhile, does not regain control.
It borrows gravity.
A single rider is fired upon any townwhere everyone fires at movement.
No tribunal examine.
Angles or origin?
No Warrant Adjudicates responsibility.
The claim is accepted because it isuseful and Usefulness Your Honor,
is not the same as Truth by Dawn.
(43:46):
Soldiers will ride not becausethe siege demanded it, but
because the story now allows it.
Day Two teaches this jury thatcontainment fails not when bullets
flag, but when patience does, whenrestraint is treated as weakness.
When institutions frustrate.
By immobility decide thatescalation is clarification.
(44:08):
No verdict is rendered here, but thecourt submits that the most dangerous
moment of the Lincoln battle isnot marked by flame or by death.
It is marked by agreement, quietlamp, lit and unchallenged that
the problem is no longer local.
And once that agreement is made, thesiege has already escaped its walls
(44:31):
no longer contained by Adobe warrants.
Or daylight, but carriedforward by authority itself.
Members of the jury, this court, thanksyou for your attention to the record.
The siege has not yet broken.
The shots have been quieted, but themachinery of escalation has begun to
turn Day two closes, not with resolution.
(44:52):
But with paperwork, accusation andintent, each as consequential as gunfire.
What you have heard in this sessionis not legend, not folklore, but
the anatomy of how violence expandswhen institutions abandon restraint.
Before this court adjourns the recordrequires several matters to be entered
(45:14):
plainly and without embellishment.
If the human cost of this history mattersto you, if the civilians sealed inside
Adobe homes, the children rationing waterand the lives erased by bureaucratic
decisions deserve remembrance.
You may participate in the AdoptiveVictim program@www.darkdialogue.com.
(45:34):
That program exists to restorenames, stories, and dignity.
To those flattened by myth,additional victim essays and case
documentation can also be found atthat website where the written record
continues beyond this courtroom.
If you wish to support this workdirectly and help sustain long
form evidence-driven historicalaccountability, you may do so at Patreon.
(45:56):
Com or on coffee.
Each platform supports a differenttier of access and preservation.
None alter the verdicts allhelp keep the record alive.
For correspondence, source material,or formal inquiries, the court may
be reached at info@darkdialogue.comif you find value in this proceeding.
(46:17):
The court asks one final civic act like,share, subscribe, and where available.
Ring the notification bell.
These actions do not serve vanity.
They serve visibility.
Algorithms vary careful work quickly.
Your engagement is how this recordremains accessible to future juries.
(46:38):
Dark Dialogue is available on allmajor podcast platforms alongside
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Rocky Mountain Reckoning DistilledUnraveled Truth, all of which
continue to examine power,violence, and accountability
beyond the American Frontier.
This court will reconvene.
(46:59):
Until then, remember, historydoes not demand belief.
It demands attention.
Stay vigilant.
Stay engaged.
Make the guilty face the gallows.
The court is now in session on the second day of a siege.
The gunfire matters less than thewaiting day one announces violence.
Day two reveals intent.
This is the hour when men discoverwhether their cause can survive,
silence, thirst, and fear.
Whether power rests in patients orwhether inpatients will reach for
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something larger, heavier, and harderto control the record before this
court does not open with motion.
It opens with immobility.
Lincoln does not weaken onthis morning as a battlefield.
It wakes as a trapped organism, homessealed windows, boarded streets, evacuated
(00:56):
of commerce, conversation, and mercy.
The town is no longer lived in it isendured an endurance, your Honor, is where
the truth begins to leak through the myth.
Because a siege is not simplyan exchange of gunfire.
It is a referendum on authority.
Inside the Mc Sween house,the regulators do not advance.
(01:19):
They do not flee.
They hold, and in holding,they force the lot in front.
An uncomfortable question.
What happens when lawful power cannot movea single house from its position Outside?
Badges remain visible.
Deputies remain armed.
Numbers remain superior, andyet the town does not bend.
(01:40):
The defenders do not scatter.
The walls do not answer to intimidation.
This is not a story of chaos.
It is a story of restraint,pressed to its breaking point.
By the second day, violence becomesless expressive and more bureaucratic.
The rage of the streetgives way to the memorandum.
Requests, justifications, appeals.
(02:02):
Upward when bullets failto resolve authority.
Authority seeks validation from ahigher shelf, and here the indictment
sharpens because the law's responseto stalemate is not reflection.
Its escalation.
The question before the jury is notwhether the regulators were saints.
That argument does not survive the record.
(02:23):
The question is whether theinstitution's meant to contain
violence instead, widened its reach.
When civilian streets become firinglanes, when families become collateral,
when hunger and thirst replacewarrants and testimony, at what point
does law cease to be governance?
And become merely another armed factiondistinguished only by letterhead.
(02:47):
The court contends that day two iswhere the battle stops being local,
not because the shots grow louder, butbecause the desperation does on this day.
Authority does not askhow to end the siege.
It asks who else might end it for them.
And once that question is asked,once federal power is even
contemplated, the siege has alreadybreached its most dangerous wall.
(03:11):
Not Adobe, not timber, but restraint.
The prosecution submits that daytwo is not defined by bloodshed.
It is defined by erosion of patients,of jurisdiction of the boundary
between civil order and military force.
Billy, the kid remains alive onthis date, so do his enemies.
(03:31):
So do the civilians, cut between them?
Something else does not survive intact.
The idea that this conflict can remaincontained, the record will show what
happens when stalemate attempts powerto borrow weight it cannot legally
carry, and whether the law in seekingto end lawlessness instead invited
something far more final into Lincoln.
(03:53):
The court now calls day two to the stand.
Members of the jury, thisproceeding resumes with the
record already under pressure.
Part seven enters day two of theLincoln County War's most infamous
siege, not to re-litigate how it beganand not to rush toward how it ends,
(04:14):
but to examine what holding looks likewhen neither side can afford to move.
Today's scope is narrow by design.
This court will not renderverdicts in this session.
This court will not dramatizegunfights for their own sake.
This court will instead examineconditions we will place before you.
The physical facts of a town undersuspension, thirst, ammunition,
(04:38):
fear, patience, and command.
Authority stretch thinby time rather than fire.
We will examine how the mc Sween housebecomes less a refuge than a fixed
legal problem, one that the law cannotsolve without revealing its own limits.
You'll hear testimony not in voices,but in actions, in who advances and who
(04:58):
waits, and who possesses numbers andwho possesses position in how official
authority behaves when it cannotcompel obedience without consequence.
This episode functions asevidence and proceedings.
No verdicts will be issued.
No moral accounting will be finalized.
Instead, the record will be expanded layerby layer until the siege can be understood
(05:21):
not as a standoff between men, but asa stress test applied to law itself.
You, the jury, are asked tolisten, not for heroism or villain,
but for institutional behavior.
When law enforcement isforced into immobility, what
tools does it reach for next?
When violence pauses, doeswisdom enter or does impatience?
(05:46):
As always, this court remindsyou myth survives on speed.
History survives on restraint.
A brief matter before the court, ifyou find this record worth preserving.
If you believe stories like these deservecareful examination rather than inherited
legend, your decision to follow, rate andreview this program materially affects
(06:07):
whether this work remains visible.
Algorithms reward, noisereviews, reward diligence.
This court depends on the latter.
With that entered, the jury isinstructed to set aside conclusions
and attend only to conditions.
They too will not announceitself with spectacle.
It will speak through delay,discomfort, and decisions deferred.
(06:29):
The proceedings will now continue.
I enter into evidence at sunrise onTuesday, July 16th, 1878, day two of the
Lincoln Siege, the town wakes sealed.
Every house still occupied by non-concombatant civilians is boarded
shut, doors barred windows, nailedcurtains, and blankets pulled tight.
(06:53):
From the street, Lincoln appearsabandoned from the inside.
It is inhabited by peopleholding their breath.
The record shows no open thresholds,no figures moving between buildings.
No morning commerce, no animalsdriven to water, no children
released into the street.
What remains visible isarchitecture under constraint.
(07:13):
Adobe walls popped with fresh scars,boards hastily nailed across windows.
And the long single roadlying empty under first light.
Inside these homes,civilians are not sheltering.
They're entombed.
Families have withdrawn into interiorrooms away from the exterior walls.
Furniture is stacked.
(07:34):
Mattresses leaned upright, trunkshoved into corners to thicken.
Adobe already asked to domore than it was built for.
The record does not showorganized evacuation.
It shows adaptation under fire.
Thirst is alreadypresent, so is exhaustion.
Most civilians have been dirtyfull day and night of sporadic
shooting wells in the river areunreachable without exposure.
(07:57):
Lamps are kept low orextinguished entirely.
Windows, even when boardedare treated as liabilities, a
silhouette is an invitation.
A sound can become a target.
The acoustics of the town shift riflecracks, echo, sharply off sealed facades.
The absence of the normal morning noise.
Voices, wagons, livestock, creates avacuum that gunfire repeatedly punctures.
(08:23):
Silence does not calmthe town it sharpens it.
At first light, the tactical arrangementestablished on day one holds the primary
regulator stronghold remains the MCsSwen house at the west end of town.
Additional regulator elementsoccupy fortified structures,
including the Montano store andallied positions farther east.
(08:45):
These positions do not advance.
They consolidate.
Opposing them.
Pepins Murphy Dolan forceoccupies key buildings, corrals
and rifle pits, commanding thestreet and approaches to the MCs.
Swen block overnight and into theearly morning, some Dolan men shift
into nearby civilian houses, homes,belonging to ham meals and Juan Chavez,
(09:07):
among them, transforming domesticspaces into forward firing posts, the
net tightens without moving forward.
The testimony is this, this conversion ofhomes into positions is not incidental.
It places civilians between lines of fire,even when those civilians remain inside.
(09:27):
The laws present spreads laterally,not decisively, occupying space.
Without resolving authority, thesiege becomes architectural control
is measured in walls, not warrants.
Inside the MCs, Swen house,the air is already stale.
Plaster does clings to floors and corners.
Exterior windows have been shot outor deliberately converted into firing
(09:49):
ports, sandbags and stacked adobe form.
Crude breastworks ammunitionis checked and rechecked.
Men rotate through themost exposed loopholes.
No one has rested.
Women inside the house remainprimarily in interior rooms, but the
record shows their labor persists.
Water carried minor wounds tendedorder maintained where possible.
(10:12):
The boundary between combatantand non-combatant is present in
principle and eroding in practice.
At Sunrise, Billy the kid, William hBonnie is inside the MCs Swen house
with the core regulator contingent.
The house functions simultaneouslyas fortress and nerve center.
Billy is not withdrawn.
He's active, moving between firingpositions, watching Dolan, health
(10:36):
houses near mills and Chavezmonitoring approaches toward the
wortley in the house complex.
The record does not place him asleep.
It places him vigilant, coordinatingoverlapping fire, ensuring
no position is left uncoveredlong enough to invite a rush.
His role is informal but evident.
(10:56):
An aggressive defenderoperating under constraint.
Ammunition is finite.
Exposure is constant.
Movement is punished.
No Dawn assault comes noorder breaks the stalemate.
Instead, both sidesobserve, measure, and wait.
The town remains sealed, not byproclamation, but by fear and gunfire.
(11:19):
Authority is present in numbers andbadges, yet unable to compel the
opening of a single civilian door.
At sunrise on day two,Lincoln exists in suspension.
Civilian life is immobilized.
Tactical lines remain fixed.
Combatants hold, rather than advancethe siege, exerts pressure without
(11:39):
resolution, converting homes intobarriers and silence into a weapon.
The conditions of confinement,physical, legal, and moral
are now fully established.
By full daylight onTuesday, July 16th, 1878.
The siege resumes, its workshooting restarts, not as a
charge, but as an obligation.
(12:01):
In exchange that neither sidecan abandon without consequence.
The record reflects hundreds of shotsfired the morning and into the day.
Not in sweeping assaults, but in cycles.
Exposure, response, silence, repetition.
This is no battle of movement.
It's a contest of endurance.
(12:21):
The regulators remainfixed in their strongholds.
The McSweeney house continuesto anchor their defense.
Its rooms converted into firing chambers.
Its windows reduced to loopholes, otherregulator positions, most notably, the
Montano premises and Allied buildingsfarther along the street, remain occupied,
but the tactical gravity of the day pullseverything back toward McSweeney's walls.
(12:45):
Men fired deliberately.
Ammunition is finite.
Each shot is weighed againstreturn fire from the Murphy Dolan
Positions scattered through housescorrals and improvised raffle pits.
When a figure crosses openground rifles answer immediately.
When no movement presents itself,the town falls into tense, quiet,
(13:06):
broken, only by wind in theoccasional crack of a long range shot.
Opposing them.
Pepins Murphy Dolan forces use themorning to tighten its perimeter.
The Posse augmented by Dolan men,seven Rivers fighters and Jesse Evans
gunman consolidates into better covercivilian houses near the MCs Swen
(13:26):
place, including those belongingto ham Mills and Juan Chavez.
They're occupied andrepurposed into forward firing.
This domestic wallsbecome part of the siege.
Sharp shooters take advantage ofelevation where it can be found.
Upper stories, rooftopsand hills behind town.
Raking the McSwain housewhenever movement betrays itself.
(13:48):
This is harassment by by designto exhaust, to provoke to test
patients without risking a rush.
The record notes at least onecasualty of the Murphy Dolan site.
During these hours, William Johnson ofthe Seven Rivers Group, is struck in the
neck and forced to ride for medical care.
At Fort Stanton, the wound registersthe cost of even cautious exposure.
(14:13):
Inside civilian homes, the daytimebrings no relief, though most houses
remain boarded and silent, riflefire continues to punch through wood
and Adobe families remain pinned tothe interior rooms, counting shots,
ratcheting water listening, asthe valley amplifies every report.
The distinction between battlefieldand household grows thinner
(14:34):
with every hour of daylight.
Throughout the morning and daytime,Billy the kid remains inside the McSwain
house with the core regulator contingent.
He does not range through town.
His world is the interiorperimeter of the building.
The record places him cyclingbetween firing positions,
window to window, room to room.
(14:55):
Covering exposed angles and watchingDolan health houses across the street.
His firing is controlled.
Shots are aimed at visible targets.
Men move between the Wortley housecomplex and nearby structures, or
sharp shooters momentarily, carelessin mills's or chavez's houses.
After firing, he withdraws behind Adobe toreload, avoiding predictable patterns that
(15:18):
would invite concentrated return fire.
When not at a loophole, hemoves through the house.
Checking on the other men, sharingobservations from where fire is heaviest,
helping redistribute defenders toprevent any single wall from becoming
the obvious point of collapse.
His role is not commandby title, but by activity.
(15:40):
No frontal assault materializes.
The Murphy Dolan forces probe andharass, but does not commit the
regulators answer fire but do not.
Sorting each side measuresthe other through dust.
Heat, shimmer and soundauthority is present everywhere.
Decisive nowhere.
Through the morning and daytimeof day two, the battle settles
(16:01):
into a sustained exchange ofgunfire without territorial change.
Physicians hold fire is continuous,but calculated Civilian risk
persists under daylight conditions.
The siege advances not by movement,but by attrition, testing, ammunition,
nerves, and the limits of restraintwithout resolving control of the town.
(16:25):
At the second day's daylight, therecord shows recognition, not victory.
Sheriff Pepin and the Murphy Dolanleadership assessed the field
and reach a shared conclusion.
The siege has stabilized against them.
The regulators remaincontained but not displaced.
The MCs Swen house stillholds fire, has not produced.
(16:45):
Surrender numbers havenot produced movement.
This acknowledgementdoes not come publicly.
It arrives privately in the languageof memorandum rather than gunfire.
The exchange of shots has clarifiedrather than confuse the situation.
The regulator's advantage ispositional and psychological.
Their defenses are intact.
(17:06):
The fire remains disciplined.
The surrounding force can harassand contain, but it cannot compel
the house to open without cost.
Daylight exposes thelimits of intimidation.
The law faced with immobilityreframes the problem.
The question shifts from how toarrest to how to force an end.
(17:27):
During the daytime hours.
George Pepin, newly appointedsheriff rates A brief note to
Nathan Dudley at Fort Stanton.
The request is specific,the loan of a Howitzer.
The stated belief is not that theartillery will be fired, it is the
threat of artillery will suffice,that the mere presence of federal
(17:48):
ordinance will coerce surrender wheredeputies and posses have failed.
This communication is nota battlefield maneuver.
It is an institutional escalation.
The sheriff does not ask for mediation.
He does not request additional deputies.
He requests a military instrumentdesigned for siege warfare.
(18:08):
The note itself is modest in length,but expansive In implication, it assumes
that civil authority may borrow militaryweight to resolve a civilian standoff.
It assumes that fear of annihilationcan substitute for lawful process.
It further assumes that federalpower once invoked, can be
contained by intention alone.
(18:29):
The record does not show that this requestis accompanied by warrants, judicial
review, or civilian evacuation plans.
It shows urgency framed as necessity.
The timing matters.
This request is made while civiliansremain sealed inside their homes,
while gunfire continues intermittently.
While the regulators have not attemptedbreakout or expansion, the stalemate
(18:53):
has not deteriorated into chaos.
It is merely resisted resolution.
In choosing artillery is leverage.
The law acknowledgesits own insufficiency.
The Howitzer is not a policing tool.
It is a statement that authorityis willing to widen the scale of
force rather than accept delay.
This is not yet action.
(19:15):
It is intent committed to paper.
By day two's daylight SheriffPepin formally recognizes the
siege as a stalemate, unfavorableto the immediate enforcement.
His written request of FortStatin introduces the prospect
of federal military involvementas psychological coercion.
The condition of the conflictremains unchanged on the ground,
(19:36):
but the judicial boundary governingits resolution has begun to shift.
In the late afternoon of Tuesday,July the 16th, sheriff Pepins
Courier reaches Fort Stanton.
The note he carries is brief and urgent.
It frames Lincoln as a townunder threat from lawless force.
It proposes a solution not of arrest, butof intimidation, the loan of a Howitzer.
(20:01):
The premise is simple artilleryneed not be fired if its shadow
alone can end resistance.
The request is placed beforeNathan Dudley, a federal officer,
already aware that Lincoln hasbeen sliding toward open conflict.
Dudley reads the letter with context.
The town itself no longer possesses.
This is not the first appealto reach Fort Stanton.
(20:23):
Complaints have arrived frommultiple directions, lawman
factions, civilians, each claimingnecessity, each claiming urgency.
The record reflects that deadly is notignorant of suffering in Lincoln, nor
indifferent to civilian danger, but thelaw stands between sympathy and action.
As a United States Army officer,deadly is bound by federal restrictions
(20:45):
that forbid military participationin local civil disturbances.
Loaning a Howitzer to a county sherifffor use against entrenched civilians
and local combatants would constitutedirect military intervention.
In a private war, it would place federalforce squarely on one faction side.
(21:05):
The request, however, carefullyworded, crosses that line.
Deadly drafts a reply.
The denial is formal,restrained, and unambiguous.
He informs George Pep andthat he cannot comply.
The law does not permithim to loan artillery.
Federal weapons cannot be usedto resolve a civilian standoff.
Regardless of how dire the circumstancesappear, the tone is not conciliatory.
(21:31):
It's firm.
The refusal is legal, not negotiable.
This is not passivity.
It's containment deadly understandsthat providing a Howitzer would
not merely threaten the regulators.
It would redraw jurisdictional boundaries.
Once artillery enters theequation, the conflict ceases to
be local in any meaningful sense.
(21:53):
The record shows Deadly'sfrustration beneath the restraint.
Local authorities have allowed thesituation to metastasize into siege
warfare, then turn to the army tofinish what civil power could not.
He refuses the weapon, but the denialhardens his view that Lincoln has become
unmanageable under its own institutions.
(22:14):
The lo blocks one door.
It does not steal his his attention.
Deadly sends the denial backtowards Lincoln by Messenger.
The letter travelswhile gunfire continues.
It moves through a landscape alreadydivided by lines of fire and fear while
the exchange unfolds at Fort Staten.
The conditions inside Lincolndo not pause to accommodate
(22:36):
it inside the McSweeney house.
Billy, the kid remains engaged in the samedefensive routine established at dawn.
He rotates between firing ports.
He watches Dolan held houses for movement.
He conserves ammunition.
He prepares for escalation withoutknowing how near it already is.
He is not consulted, he is not informed.
(22:58):
His world remains adobe dust and riflesmoke by late afternoon on day two.
The request for artillery hasbeen formally denied federal law
prevents the loan of the Howitzer,and no military aid is authorized
for offensive use in Lincoln.
On the ground, nothing changes.
The siege continues uninterrupted,but institutionally, the
exchange marks a turning point.
(23:19):
Civil authority has asked formilitary force and been refused,
revealing both the limits of the lawand the pressure building behind it.
Approximately 6:30 PM on Tuesday, thebureaucratic machinery surrounding
the Lincoln Siege begins to movefrom Fort Staton Barry Robinson,
(23:40):
a private in the United StatesArmy, departs a loan on horseback.
He carries a sealed note from NathanDudley address to George Pepin.
The message he bears is a denial.
Robinson's orders are narrow.
Deliver the letter.
Nothing more.
The document contains Dudley'srefusal to loan Howitzer, an assertion
of legal boundary in a conflictthat has already tested them.
(24:03):
Yet the route Robinson takesis anything but administrative.
He rides West into a regionalready conditioned for violence.
The road between Fort Staten and Lincolnis familiar ground, but on this evening,
it leads toward an active siege.
Both factions inside Lincoln hasspent the day firing at movement.
(24:23):
Shadows are suspect riders aretargets until proven otherwise,
Robinson travels without escort,without banner, and without the
protection that daylight affords.
The timing ensures that he willreach Lincoln near or after dark.
The purpose of Robinson'smission is formal notification.
Pepin is to be informed thatfederal artillery will not be lit
(24:47):
for use against the McSwain houseon paper, this ends the request.
In practice, it advances something else.
A federal witness enters the field.
By sending an enlisted man into anactive combat zone, deadly remains
technically compliant with the lawwhile placing the army one step
closer to direct entanglement, therecord shows restraint and policy
(25:11):
paired with exposure and execution.
Robinson's presence in Lincoln willmatter beyond the letter itself.
His observations, what he sees, whathe hears, what he later reports will
become part of the institutionalnarrative surrounding the siege.
His ride is not neutral.
It's evidentiary.
(25:33):
At the moment of departure,Dudley has not authorized troops.
He has not crossed the line that he justdefended on paper, but he has allowed
the conflict to touch the army directlyif only through a single messenger.
As Robinson rides conditions insideLincoln remain unchanged within the
mc Sween house, Billy the kid andthe regulators continue the defensive
(25:55):
routine established throughout the day.
Men rotate through firing ports.
Visibility deteriorates.
Silhouettes, replace faces.
Ammunition is conserved.
Waters scarce.
Fatigue accumulates The house preparesnot for correspondence, but for night.
Billy has no knowledgeof the letter in transit.
(26:15):
He does not know that theartillery has been requested
and denied from his position.
The only facts that exist are thesame ones that have defined the day.
Dolan held houses across the street,intermittent gunfire, and the certainty
that darkness will not bring peace.
The siege does not announcebureaucratic shifts.
It registers only force.
(26:37):
At approximately six 30, a federalcourier departs Fort Staten carrying
a formal denial of artillery support.
The message moves toward Lincolnas daylight fades, bridging civil
authority and military presencethrough a single rider on the ground.
The siege remains unchanged, but theinstitutional distance between local
(26:57):
conflict and federal involvement hasnarrowed even further without either
side inside Lincoln yet knowing it.
Just before sundown, Barry Robinsonreaches the Western approach to Lincoln.
He is still carrying Nathan Dudley'swritten denial of the Howitzer request.
He's still alone, and now he'sentering a town where movement
(27:17):
itself has become suspect.
The record places Robinson within riflerange of multiple armed positions.
Regulator and Murphy don't wannalike at a moment when nerves are
frayed and daylight is failing.
As Robinson rides in from the west,several shots crack out towards him.
The record fractures here on attributionhistory does not offer a clean answer
(27:42):
as to who fired whether the regulatorsmistook him for a Dolan writer.
Dolan then mistook him fora regulator or unaffiliated.
Gunman reacted to motionwithout identification.
What the record does show is consequence.
Robinson's horse reacts violently,whether struck or spooked.
If throws him, Robinsonhits the ground under fire.
(28:04):
He's not wounded.
He regains control.
He remounts.
The ride continues.
Despite the incident, Robinsonpresses into town and makes
his way to the Wortley Hotel.
A central node of the Murphy Dolanactivity where he reaches James Dolan
and delivers Dudley's written refusal.
The denial is now in local hands.
(28:26):
Robinson's account doesnot end with delivery.
In later reports, he emphasizes that hewas fired upon while entering Lincoln.
An armed soldier on officialduty, unhorsed by gunfire.
The phrasing matters.
It reframes the siege, not merelyas a civil standoff, but as a
place where federal personnel areno longer immune to its violence.
(28:49):
For Dolan's faction alreadyfrustrated by stalemate in refusal.
Robinson's experience becomesconfirmation rather than anomaly.
The letter denies artillery,the ride supplies grievance.
During these moments inside the MCs Swenhouse, Billy the Kidd remains at his post.
He and the other regulators continuetheir late day routine watching
(29:10):
Dolan held houses, trading occasionalshots, conserving ammunition, bracing
for the uncertainties of nightfall.
No maneuver is attempted.
No message reaches them.
Any shots heard from the Westernedge of town register only as more
gunfire in a day already definedby it from within McSwain's Walls.
(29:31):
Robinson's fall is indistinguishablefrom any other burst of violence.
There is no indication that Billyor the regulators understand in
that moment that a single writer'sexperience will later be cited as
evidence that soldiers were fired upon.
The siege does not announceits turning points.
It buries them inside routine.
(29:53):
The proceedings findings before sundown.
On day two, a federal courier enteringLincoln is fired upon, thrown from his
horse, and nonetheless completes hisdelivery to the Murphy Dolan leadership.
The ground situation remains unchanged.
Regulators hold the seizures,contain civilians remain trapped.
Institutionally.
(30:14):
However, the incident introduces anew claim into the record that federal
personnel have been exposed to hostilefire altering how the siege will be
interpreted beyond Lincoln Streets.
In the evening hours inside theWortley Hotel, the Robinson incident
is given a name and an origin.
James Dolan informs Barry Robinson thatthe shots fired at him came from the
(30:38):
regulators inside the MCs Swen house.
The assertion is immediate.
It is stated as fact Robinsondoes not challenge the claim.
He's unfamiliar with the precisegeometry of Lincoln's firing lines.
He has just been unhorsed under fire.
He has no immediate means ofidentifying where the shots
originated in this condition.
(30:59):
He accepts Dolan's explanationwithout investigation.
The record notes competing possibilities.
Men aligned with Dolan were postedat the house building and around
the Wortley itself, positions thatalso commanded the Western approach.
Confusion, misidentificationor self-interested framing
cannot be excluded.
(31:20):
History offers noballistic certainty here.
What matters is not what can beproven, but what is accepted.
Robinson completes his mission.
He delivers Nathan Dudley's writtendenial to George Pepin and Dolan.
The Howitzer will not be provided.
The question is closed.
Another opens.
Pepin and Dolan now possess twoconverging elements, a federal
(31:42):
refusal that frustrates theirattempted escalation and a soldier's
account that he was fired upon.
Now attributed to the regulators.
Together, these form a narrative.
The conversation at theWortley is no longer tactical.
It's political.
The regulators are reframed, not merelyas armed men resisting arrest, but as
(32:04):
aggressors who have fired on a uniformedrepresentative of the United States Army.
This distinction mattersprofoundly beyond Lincoln Streets.
The claim does notrequire proof to function.
It requires repetition.
I enter into evidence during these sameevening hours inside the MCs Swen house.
(32:25):
Billy, the kid remainsunaware of this reframing.
He and the other regulators continue theirdefensive posture under sporadic fire.
They rotate through loopholes.
They manage fatigue, thirst,and dwindling comfort.
Their attention is fixed outwardon Dolan held houses on movement
in the darkening street.
No message reaches them.
(32:46):
No accusation is deliveredfrom inside the Adobe walls.
The Robinson incident registers onlyas another burst of gunfire among many.
The testimony is this.
Billy does not know that this eveninghis position is being named as the
source of fire on a US soldier.
He does not know that thisattribution will soon travel
(33:07):
back to Fort Staton as fact.
He remains a defendantwithout notice accused.
In absentee the sea teaches mento listen for bullets, not words.
The findings are this.
By the evening of day two, the firingincident involving a federal courier
has been formally attributed withoutinvestigation to the regulators.
(33:28):
In Mc Sween House, Colonel Dudley's denialof artillery has been delivered, but
its impact is eclipsed by a new claim.
The US military personnelhave come under fire.
On the ground, nothing changes.
Institutionally, the conflicts narrativehas shifted, laying the groundwork
for direct military involvement.
(33:48):
As night falls, George Pepin issuesorders for his men to continue firing
into knowing regulator positions.
The instruction is nottactical in in ambition.
It is pressure applied for its own sake.
Harassment meant to remind the besiegethat encirclement remains intact.
The shot strike.
Adobe and wood windows shatter furtherwalls chip, no breach is achieved.
(34:14):
I enter into testimony.
The darkness strips the gunfireof effectiveness, targets vanish.
Returns diminish.
Ammunition is conserved.
What remains is noise and fear.
Psychological force in placeof physical gain over time.
Even this tapers off rifles fall.
Quiet men on both sidesredraw into their shelters.
(34:37):
The silence that replacesgunfire is not peace.
It is vigilance without release.
I enter into evidence that inside theMCs, Swen house conditions have worsened.
Heat lingers in the battered adobe smokeand plastered dust clinging in the air.
Water is nearly gone.
Thirst has, has begun toimpair judgment and strength.
(34:59):
Men have slept only in fragments, rifleswithin arms, reach bodies slumped against
walls or floors Among them, is Billy thekid still rotating watch, still prepared
for a night rush that never comes.
The households, but atincreasing human cost.
With firing cease, thethirst becomes critical.
(35:20):
A decision is made thatcarries no tactical advantage
and immense personal risk.
Susan Gates, accompanied by some of theshield children, leaves the cover of
the MCs Swen House After Night Faultto fetch water from the Rio Bonito.
They go unarmed.
They move quietly.
Knowing that any misinterpretation couldbe fatal, no regulator escorts them.
(35:43):
Armed protection couldmark them as combatants.
I enter into evidence that as theymake their way to the river and back
dolan's, men do not fire whether fromrestraint, custom, or exhaustion,
the armed perimeter holds its fire.
The women and children returnunharmed carrying water back
into the besieged house.
(36:04):
This act alters no positions.
It resolves no claims.
The testimony is this.
Inside McSweeney's walls, thewater brings brief relief.
Men drink the most debilitatedrecovery enough to continue.
Gratitude is present, but sois the understanding that mercy
is temporary and conditional.
(36:26):
The defenders know the gesturedoes not signal leniency to come.
It signals only that the nightfor the moment has spared them.
Across town Pepins men rest uneasily.
They have not broken the stronghold.
They know federal attention is sharpening.
The stalemate persists, and withit the risk that the conflict
(36:47):
will soon exceed local control.
Through the night of day two, the gunfirediminishes and ceases without resolution.
The siege continues undersilence, thirst and exhaustion.
A brief humanitarian passage to the riverallows water to reach the MCs Swen house
temporarily sustaining its defenders.
(37:08):
Tactical conditions remain unchanged.
Human strain deepens on both sides asthe conflict pauses without ending.
As the night deepens and slidestoward early morning on Wednesday,
July 17th, the siege tightensinto into two separate places.
One in Lincoln, one miles away.
(37:28):
At Fort Staton, both move independently,both move towards the same consequence.
Inside the mc swing house, at least twowindows have now been completely shot out.
These are no longer firing ports.
They are voids.
Glass is gone, frames are chewed away.
Night air moves freely through theopenings carrying dust, and the
(37:50):
awareness that nothing now interruptsbullets path, but distance and luck.
Defenders pull back from these exposures.
Furniture is dragged.
Trunks are stacked.
Blankets and boards arepressed into service.
Not to stop rifle fire,but to reduce visibility.
The house is still standing,but its margin of safety
(38:11):
is shrinking room by room.
The damage builds each destroyedwindow registers, not merely as loss
of material, but as loss of option.
Inside Billy, the kid and theremaining regulators continue rotating.
Watch through safe loopholes.
Exhaustion is no longer episodic.
It's constant.
(38:31):
Men confer quietly.
Rifles are checked, ammunition is counted.
Again.
Billy's role in thesehours is not dramatic.
It's managerial.
He checks positions, he confers with MCs,swen, and the more experienced fighters.
He helps decide which roomsmust remain manned and which
must be abandoned is untenable.
(38:52):
There is no expectation of relief.
Only the discipline of holdinguntil forced otherwise.
The water fetched earlier haspostponed, collapsed, but not cured.
It.
Thirst remains close.
Sleep comes only in fragments.
Every new hole in the walls reinforcesthe understanding that, that the house
is being slowly opened by attrition.
(39:14):
While Lincoln contracts inward eventsat Fort Sta and expand outward,
Barry Robinson returns from Lincolnand reports to Nathan Dudley.
His account is emphatic.
He states that he was nearlyshot while entering town.
He identifies the fires comingfrom the regulators near the
McSwain house, repeating theattribution given to him in Lincoln.
(39:37):
The report is delivered as fact.
The effect on deadly is immediate.
The legal restraint that hemaintained earlier in the day
collides with a different obligation.
The safety and honor of his command,what had been a civil disturbance now
appears through Robinson's report asa place where a federal soldier can
(39:57):
be fired upon while carrying orders.
That distinction mattersprofoundly within military culture.
Late that night, moving into theearly hours of July 17th, Dudley
convenes a meeting with his officers.
They review what they know, theongoing siege, the presence of women
and children under fire, the failureof local law to resolve the conflict.
(40:20):
And now the claim that a USsoldier has been targeted.
The legal barriers remain,but the context has changed.
By the end of this conference,a decision has been reached.
The officers agree that theywill ride into Lincoln at dawn.
Officially, the purpose isinvestigation and protection.
Practically, it is the assertionof federal presence where
(40:43):
local authority has failed.
Troops will go, artillerywill accompany them.
This decision is made while theMCs Swen house sets in darkness.
Its windows blown out.
Its defenders unaware.
Billy, the kid does notknow that miles away.
His position has becomecentral to a report that will
justify military movement.
(41:04):
He listens instead For footsteps,for gunfire, for the creek of boards.
Two worlds move at once, onecontracts, and one advances.
In the late night and early morninghours, bridging July 16th into July
17th, the MCs Swen house sustainsfurther structural exposure,
(41:24):
increasing risk to its defenders.
Simultaneously, a federal reportalleging gunfire directed at a US
soldier prompts Colonel Dudley andhis officers to decide on direct
military entry into Lincoln at dawn.
The sea remains unresolved on the ground,but the conditions governing it has
shifted decisively beyond local control.
(41:49):
The court reconvenes notto resolve, but to reckon.
Day two ends without a charge,without a surrender, without a
body carried from the street.
And yet this day extracts itstoll with precision, windows are
removed, water becomes currency.
Words become weapons.
Authority begins to speak less throughlaw and more through proximity to force.
(42:13):
The record is clear on one point.
Nothing decisive happensin Lincoln on this day.
By accident.
The regulators do not advancebecause they cannot afford to.
The procedures do not withdraw becausethey cannot explain retreat and the law.
Facing a house, it cannot move,does not pause to reflect.
It looks upward.
(42:35):
This is where the myth fractures, popularmemory frames sieges as contests of
firepower, courage or criminal daring.
But the record before the court showssomething quieter and more corrosive.
It shows erosion.
It shows how stalemate temptsinstitutions to redefine necessity,
how uncertainty invites escalation,dressed as investigation.
(42:59):
How accusation.
Once spoken and repeated becomesoperational truth regardless of proof.
On this night, Billy, the kiddoes not expand his legend.
He shrinks into a house withfewer windows than it had at dawn.
He becomes less outlaw and more fixed.
Point an object around which othersmaneuver, narrate and justify the law
(43:23):
meanwhile, does not regain control.
It borrows gravity.
A single rider is fired upon any townwhere everyone fires at movement.
No tribunal examine.
Angles or origin?
No Warrant Adjudicates responsibility.
The claim is accepted because it isuseful and Usefulness Your Honor,
is not the same as Truth by Dawn.
(43:46):
Soldiers will ride not becausethe siege demanded it, but
because the story now allows it.
Day Two teaches this jury thatcontainment fails not when bullets
flag, but when patience does, whenrestraint is treated as weakness.
When institutions frustrate.
By immobility decide thatescalation is clarification.
(44:08):
No verdict is rendered here, but thecourt submits that the most dangerous
moment of the Lincoln battle isnot marked by flame or by death.
It is marked by agreement, quietlamp, lit and unchallenged that
the problem is no longer local.
And once that agreement is made, thesiege has already escaped its walls
(44:31):
no longer contained by Adobe warrants.
Or daylight, but carriedforward by authority itself.
Members of the jury, this court, thanksyou for your attention to the record.
The siege has not yet broken.
The shots have been quieted, but themachinery of escalation has begun to
turn Day two closes, not with resolution.
(44:52):
But with paperwork, accusation andintent, each as consequential as gunfire.
What you have heard in this sessionis not legend, not folklore, but
the anatomy of how violence expandswhen institutions abandon restraint.
Before this court adjourns the recordrequires several matters to be entered
(45:14):
plainly and without embellishment.
If the human cost of this history mattersto you, if the civilians sealed inside
Adobe homes, the children rationing waterand the lives erased by bureaucratic
decisions deserve remembrance.
You may participate in the AdoptiveVictim program@www.darkdialogue.com.
(45:34):
That program exists to restorenames, stories, and dignity.
To those flattened by myth,additional victim essays and case
documentation can also be found atthat website where the written record
continues beyond this courtroom.
If you wish to support this workdirectly and help sustain long
form evidence-driven historicalaccountability, you may do so at Patreon.
(45:56):
Com or on coffee.
Each platform supports a differenttier of access and preservation.
None alter the verdicts allhelp keep the record alive.
For correspondence, source material,or formal inquiries, the court may
be reached at info@darkdialogue.comif you find value in this proceeding.
(46:17):
The court asks one final civic act like,share, subscribe, and where available.
Ring the notification bell.
These actions do not serve vanity.
They serve visibility.
Algorithms vary careful work quickly.
Your engagement is how this recordremains accessible to future juries.
(46:38):
Dark Dialogue is available on allmajor podcast platforms alongside
companion programs, dark Dialogue,main Show, dark Dialogue, shadow
Chat Sessions, dark Dialogue.
Rocky Mountain Reckoning DistilledUnraveled Truth, all of which
continue to examine power,violence, and accountability
beyond the American Frontier.
This court will reconvene.
(46:59):
Until then, remember, historydoes not demand belief.
It demands attention.
Stay vigilant.
Stay engaged.
Make the guilty face the gallows.
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