Frank Coe. He stood near the door, outside the house. Then, as it is told by Johnnie Patten, who saw it all, there suddenly came around upon him from behind the house the gang of the Kid, all gun fighters, each opening fire as he came. The gritty little man gave back not a step toward the open door. Crippled by his old wounds so that he could not raise his rifle to his shoulder, he worked the lever from his hip. Here were a dozen men, the best fighting men of all that wild country, shooting at him at a distance of not a dozen feet; yet he shot Jack Middleton through the lungs, though failing to kill him. He shot a finger off the hand of George Coe, who then left the fight. Roberts then half stepped forward and pushed his gun against the stomach of Billy the Kid. For some reason the piece failed to fire, and the Kid was saved by the narrowest escape he ever had in his life. Charlie Bowdre now appeared around the corner of the house, and Roberts fired at him next. His bullet struck Bowdre in the belt, and cut the belt off from him. Almost at the same time, Bowdre fired at him and shot him through the body. He did not drop, but staggered back against the wall; and so he stood there, crippled of old and now wounded to death, but so fierce
a human tiger that his very looks struck dismay into this gang of professional fighters. They actually withdrew around the house and left him there!
Each claimed the credit for having shot the victim. "No," said Charlie Bowdre, "I shot him myself. I dusted him on both sides. I saw the dust fly out on both sides of his coat, where my bullet went clean through him." They argued, but they did not go around the house again.
Roberts now staggered back into the house. He threw down his own Winchester and picked up a heavy Sharps' rifle which belonged to Dr. Appel, and which he found there, in Dr. Blazer's room. Brewer told Dr. Blazer to bring Roberts out, but, like a man, Blazer refused. Roberts pulled a mattress off the bed to the floor and threw himself down upon it near an open window in the front of the house. The gang had scattered, surrounding the house. Dick Brewer had taken refuge behind a thirty-inch sawlog near the mill, just one hundred and forty steps from the window near which this fierce little fighting man was lying, wounded to death. Brewer raised his head just above the top of the sawlog, so that he could see what
Roberts was doing. His eyes were barely visible above the top of the log, yet at that distance the heavy bullet from Roberts' buffalo gun struck him in the eye and blew off the top of his head.
Billy the Kid was now leader of the posse. His first act was to call his men together and ride away from the spot, his whole outfit whipped by a single man! There was a corpse behind them, and wounded men with them.
Thirty-six hours later there was another corpse at Blazer's Mill. The doctor, brought over from Fort Stanton, could do nothing for Roberts, and he died in agony. Johnnie Patten, sawyer and rough carpenter, made one big coffin, and in this the two, Brewer and Roberts, were buried side by side. "I couldn't make a very good coffin," says Patten, "so I built it in the shape of a big V, with no end piece at the foot. We just put them both in together." And there they lie to-day, grim grave-company, according to the report of this eye-witness, who would seem to be in a position indicating accuracy. Emil Blazer, a son of Dr. Blazer, still lives on the site of this fierce little battle, and he says that the two dead men were buried separately, but side by side, Brewer to the right of
Roberts. The little graveyard holds a few other graves, none with headboards or records, and grass now grows above them all.
The building where Roberts stood at bay is now gone, and another adobe is erected a little farther back from the raceway that once fed the old mountain sawmill, but which now is not used as of yore. The old flume still exists where the water ran over onto the wheel, and the site of the old mill, which is now also torn down, is easily traceable. When the author visited the spot in the fall of 1905, all these points were verified and the distances measured. It was a long shot that Roberts made, and down hill. The vitality of the man who made it, his courage, and his tenacity alike of life and of purpose against such odds make Roberts a man remembered with admiration even to-day in that once bloody region.