DIGGING UP STORIES ABOUT BILLY THE KID

As published in El Paso Inc.
Lincoln Log
by Brad Cooper, columnist

James W. Bell got himself a really handsome tombstone a couple weeks ago in White Oaks, a near-ghost town about 12 miles north of Carrizozo off Route 54.

Being dead, and all, for over 122 years, it didn't make much difference to James Bell.

And tombstones aren't really for the dead, but the living.

Bell was one of two deputies killed by Henry (Billy Antrim, Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, Billy the Kid, Billy Bonney, William H. Bonney) McCarty on April 28, 1881.

Bell's grave had sort of been "lost," even though it's always been in the rocky ground of the Cedarvale Cemetery. The whereabouts of the other deputy killed in the escape, Robert Ollinger, is unknown, as in really lost.

When Bell's resting place was rediscovered, Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan was shocked (shocked, I tell you) that a deputy fallen in the line of duty had no appropriate gravestone...or any to speak of.

In a ceremony the morning of Saturday, July 19, 2003, a new tombstone was put in place, large and grand not to be opulent...but rather just heavy enough that it couldn't be hauled off by some drunken fraternity boys or souvenir seeker. (Billy the Kid's tombstone in Ft. Sumner, N.M., disappeared in 1950 and didn't show up again for 26 years when it was discovered in Granville, Texas. It disappeared again in the early 1980's, though it showed up a few days later. It's now reportedly housed in a cage.)


The occasion drew about 100 or more, many in period costume, including Ruth Birdsong portraying Belle ("Madam Varnish") Starr, an immortalized brothel queen of yesteryear (no relation to Blaze). In modern terms, it was fairly respectful, with only about one camera present for every 12 or 13 attendees.

Father Dave Bergs of the Santa Rita Catholic Church in Carrizozo (well, somewhat catholic...don't show up for a midnight mass on Christmas Eve...there isn't one) said a few words as an antique hand-cranked organ played "Rock of Ages."

Dick Ness (reportedly no relation to Elliot), former sheriff of Torrance County and currently the executive director of the organization which paid for the headstone, the New Mexico Sheriff's & Police Association, noted that, "We have been remiss in providing a proper headstone for this courageous frontier lawmen. This tombstone is our contribution to his parting." Bell was 28 when gunned down by The Kid.

A wake followed at Grady & Betty Stewart's White Oaks "No Scum Allowed" Saloon & Social Club. It came with a mock gunfight between lawmen and bad guys including Dave Spencer of White Oaks, and Dave Scott of Carrizozo---two guys old enough to know that they're going to get hurt one of these days feigning death so dramatically. The gunfire scared the hell out of the bar's resident cat, normally surrounded by calmer sounds like Bud-belches and the flatulent notes of a poor diet.

In the bigger picture, the ceremonies at Bell's grave are conveniently in line with a campaign by Sullivan and Capitan Mayor and Deputy Sheriff Steve Sederwall to prove that it really is Billy the Kid that's in Billy the Kid's grave in Fort Sumner, N.M.

To do that they've reopened the murder investigation of Bell and Ollinger and the plan is to dig up Catherine Antrim, Billy's mom, to prove that their fellow lawman, Sheriff Pat Garrett, really DID kill Billy.

They want to put the Ollie L. "Brushy Bill" Roberts version of the story...that Pat let his former friend escape and staged the death...to rest. Roberts died in Hico, Texas, in 1950 still claiming he was Billy the Kid. His DNA will be compared to Cathy Antrim.

As you read this she may already have been exhumed from a Silver City cemetery. New Mexico State police are going to manage the scene at the cemetery where there's bound to be lots of cameras. The only thing that was holding it up was some details that the forensic anthropologist needed to take care of first. Probably book rights.

Call it "CSI Lincoln County" if you will, but the story has already worked its way up the journalism food chain to the sometimes fiction/sometimes fact New York Times. It already has documentary film crews in the county, and why not? This has got History Channel, History Channel International, Discovery Channel, A&E, TLC and more written all over it. It is a true "Cold Case File" which the rash of those forensic-gore shows and knockoffs would glory in. You don't need to be a dead pharaoh to qualify for being dug up anymore, now we're going to start plowing our way through other historical eras. Who really is buried in Grant's tomb? The unknown soldiers don't have to be anymore. We have the technology. And it's good TV.

There are people around the country that think this is just some bright tourism ploy. It's not.


Sheriff Pat Garrett.

In the end there's one of two things that could be proven. This is going to prove once and forever that Pat Garrett is a wonderful former Lincoln County Sheriff and we ought to get him a bigger and better tombstone than the unimpressive one he has in a Las Cruces, N.M., graveyard because he shot Billy the Kid and took the reward.

Or, Pat Garrett is a lying no-good snake of a lawman, requiring that his embroidered image be banished from the huge shoulder patches on every sheriff's department uniform and on most of their vehicles. He should give the reward back.

The other big winner or loser could be Ft. Sumner or Hico, Texas.

If it's not Billy in one of three cemented-over graves that they think he's buried in there....well, so much for those license plates that read: "We've Got The Kid."

And start putting up souvenir stands in Hico, Texas, wherever it may be.

And lots of directional signs.

There will be a lot of New Mexico lawmen headed that way to, at the minimum, spit on a grave.

Also, if this were the case, hundreds of Billy books will be trash if Brushy Bill really were Billy the Kid, which brings me to the point of this column.

Two movies, "Young Guns" and "Young Guns II," got it right.

Therefore, as men have always known, movies ARE better than reading books.

That's why all this is important.

And that's the truth.