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- The Mystery of Billy the Kid
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- Southeast New Mexico
- De Baca County
- The Mystery of Billy the Kid
- Home
- De Baca County
- Fort Sumner, New Mexico
- The Mystery of Billy the Kid
The Mystery of Billy the Kid
- By Don McAlavy
- Published 01/11/2003
- Southeast New Mexico , De Baca County , Fort Sumner, New Mexico
- Unrated
Don McAlavy
Don McAlavy was born in 1931 in Clovis, NM, in Curry County. His first six years was in a rural school in the Claud community. He graduated from Clovis High School in 1950 and following that he served in the Korean War. In 1958 he attended college for one year at East Contra Costa Junior College at Concord, California and a semester at Eastern New Mexico University at Portales, NM. He began his 46-year career as a printer in 1948 and when he retired in 1994 he was co-owner of City Printing, Inc. of Clovis, NM.
In 1972 Don founded the High Plains Historical Fd., Inc. of Eastern New Mexico, a nonprofit historical society. He was co-editor and writer of the two massive volumes of family and area history, Curry County History in 1978 and High Plains History in 1980. Don researched and wrote the 77 pages of Open Range History of central-eastern New Mexico in the High Plains book.
Don co-founded the first Clovis-Portales Arts Council in 1968 and from 1968 until 1973 was an appointed member (by Gov. David Cargo) of the New Mexico Arts Commission.
He began writing a history column for the now defunct Curry County Times weekly newspaper in 1976. From 1980-1986 and again from 1999 to the present has written a weekly history column for the daily Clovis News Journal. In 1985 Don wrote the outdoor drama Billy the Kid which was featured at the Caprock Amphitheater near San Jon, NM, for ten years. Don was for the first four years the villain of this historical drama, Deputy Bob Olinger, later in other roles and finally the director of the show.
In 1988 Don published Eula Mae Edwards' novel Red is my Color (written ca 1940 about a young girl and her troubles around the end of the 19th century) in co-operation with Eastern New Mexico University-Clovis. The Eula Mae Edwards Museum (now at Clovis Community College) is the home of her Indian artifacts. Don has published several other booklets on Clovis history.
Don retired from City Printing, Inc. in 1994 to write a novel based on the history of the Spike-Gholson feud which ended in the deaths of three Spikes in 1902 at Mesa Redondo south of Tucumcari, NM. The first printing of Our Kind is Hard to Kill was done by the Eastern New Mexico University Printing Department in 1997, and the second printing by ENMU was in 1998.
Don's wife is Katherine Whiteman McAlavy, a retired school teacher from the Clovis Municipal Schools. They have 6 children, 16 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The boys are handsome, the girls are beautiful, and all are above average. Don and Kathy still make the Clovis area their home.
View all articles by Don McAlavy
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We thought we knew all the facts when we all read the book Sheriff Pat Garrett wrote in 1882, a year after Billy’s death, entitled The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, the Noted Desperado of the Southwest, whose Deeds of Daring and Blood made his Name a Terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico. The title itself suggests to most of us the beginning of exaggeration and the exploitation of one Billy the Kid. Garrett employed a ghost-writer by the name of Ash Upson, an out-of-work, has-been newspaperman. Much of Upson’s writing is prefabrication except possibly the part that Garrett wrote about his killing of Billy the Kid. Upson is the father of the myths surrounding Billy the Kid that has been perpetuated ever since. An example: "Billy killed 21 men, one for each year of his life!" Only four documented killings can be laid at Billy’s feet, and these were in self-defense. The book to read that corrects the misconceptions in Garrett-Upson’s book and sets the record straight is Frederick Nolan’s re-print of that book that came out in 2000, entitled simply Pat F. Garrett’s The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, an annotated edition with notes and commentary by Nolan. It is an eye-opener!
The biggest controversy concerning Billy is whether he was a good kid gone bad or just a natural-born killer. I opt for a
The Lincoln County War would have ended the same with or without Billy’s participation, yet in the end Billy was made a scapegoat by the notorious Santa Fe Ring made up of greedy and ambitious lawmakers, governors, and lawmen under their rule. Billy was the only warrior in that terrible conflict that was brought to trial and sentenced to be hung. His fame came with his daring escape from the Lincoln County jail, killing two professional guards with his hands and feet in shackles.
Billy became a romantic is the eyes of many when instead of heading south to Old Mexico to safety, he opted to go to Fort Sumner where he felt save among friends, some of them women. It was his love for Paulita Maxwell that led to his death. Her brother, Pete Maxwell, wealthy stockman and land owner, in a message to Sheriff Pat Garrett, told of Billy’s whereabouts and Billy’s attention to his young sister. There on the moonlit night of July 14, 1881, Garrett in the dark with Pete in his bedroom with his posse of two outside, came Billy in search of something to eat. Seeing the two men outside he stepped inside the bedroom door from the covered porch and asked Pete: "Quien es?" Garrett recognized Billy’s voice, drew and fired two shots, one fatal bullet struck below his heart. Billy had hesitated to fire (some believe he had no pistol at that moment) and was backing away when he was killed.
Old Fort Sumner, south of present town of Ft. Sumner established in 1906 with the coming of the railroad, is where Billy the Kid is buried, in the old military cemetery. Today, he and his two pals are surrounded by iron bars to keep souvenir hunters from stealing the small footstone and chipping away on the big tombstone. Ironically, even in death Billy is not free from iron bars.