Pat Garrett started down the Pecos river with his crew, consisting of our six cowboys, his brother-in-law, Barney Mason, and Frank Stewart, who had been acting as detective for the Panhandle cattlemen’s association.
At Fort Sumner, Pat Garrett deputized Charlie Rudolph and a few Mexican friends, to join the crowd which now numbered about thirteen men.
Finding that the “Kid” and party had been in Fort Sumner, and made the old abandoned United States Hospital building, where lived Charlie Bowdre and his half-breed Mexican wife, their headquarters, Pat Garrett concluded to camp there. He figured that the outlaws would return and visit Mrs. Charlie Bowdre, whose husband was one of the outlaw band.
In order to get a true record of the capture of “Billy the Kid” and gang, the author wrote to James H. East, of Douglas, Arizona, for the facts. Jim East is the only known living participant in that tragic event. His reputation for honesty and truthfulness is above par wherever he is known. He served eight years as sheriff of Oldham County, Texas, at Tascosa, and was city marshal for several years in Douglas, Arizona.
Herewith his letter to the writer is printed in full:
“Douglas, Arizona,
May 1st, 1920.
Dear Charlie:
Yours of the 29th received, and contents noted. I will try to answer your questions, but you know after a lapse of forty years, one’s memory may slip a cog. First: We were quartered in the old Government Hospital building in Ft. Sumner, the night of the first fight. Lon Chambers was on guard. Our horses were in Pete Maxwell’s stable. Sheriff Pat Garrett, Tom Emory, Bob Williams, and Barney Mason were playing poker on a blanket on the floor.
I had just laid down on my blanket in the corner, when Chambers ran in and told us that the ‘Kid’ and his gang were coming. It was about eleven o’clock at night. We all grabbed our guns and stepped out in the yard.
Just then the ‘Kid’s’ men came around the corner of the old hospital building, in front of the room occupied by Charlie Bowdre’s woman and her mother. Tom O’Phalliard was riding in the lead. Garrett yelled out: ‘Throw up your hands!’ But O’Phalliard jerked his pistol. Then the shooting commenced. It being dark, the shooting was at random.