Recollections of AH Aguayo

Recollection adapted from newspaper article referenced below.

A.H. Aguayo

Billy often came to my father’s house when I was a kid. He was just a slim, small man who acted like he didn’t have a care in the world. He had worlds of friends all over this country where he could hide whenever he wanted to. Billy came to our house with his guitar. He loved to play and sing. Why, he sang like a mockingbird.

Billy was an outlaw, but he was never bad. He was forced into it.

They tell more lies about Billy than they do the truth.

Now I’m going to straighten out a few things for you. I didn’t see this happen – only one man did – but the story was told to me by the man who gave the gun to Billy with which he killed Bell.

Now the way the story is told, Bell and Billy were playing cards in the jail about noon one day. Bell is supposed to have dropped a card and Billy snatched his gun, then when Bell ran down the back stairs, they say, Billy shot him.

But it just didn’t happen that way.

This is what happened. I am not going to name the man who gave Billy the gun because his people still live in Lincoln county and I don’t need to embarrass them. Some of them are friends of mine.

This man was a good friend of Billy’s, and of mine later. He went to visit Billy in the jail while he was waiting to be hung, and he told Billy, “I’ll put a gun in that new outhouse for you – up on a 2x4 where it won’t be found – if you want me to,” as he told me later. And Billy just said, “Good.”

Now on the day that they had agreed on, when Olinger called all of the prisoners out to go over to the hotel for dinner, Billy refused to go and said that he had to go out to the outhouse. Billy told them that he was feeling bad. Olinger told Bell to stay with Billy, and Olinger took the other prisoners to dinner. Now Billy told our friend later that Bell took him down the steps and out the south door. Billy found the pistol just as his friend had promised, and he hid it in his pants.

Billy came back in a little while to where Bell had waited by the jail door. Bell let him in, and while Bell locked the door Billy went up the stairs. Billy rounded the corner and made the top of the stairs in about two quick jumps. He was as quick as a cat anyhow.

When Bell reached the landing, Billy killed him with two shots. The bullet holes are still there if you want to go see them. Then Billy went and got a good shotgun, went to a front window and waited. When they heard the shots over at the hotel, someone yelled, “Bell has shot Billy!” and Olinger told someone to watch the prisoners, and he ran out with his hat on to go to the jail and see.

Billy waited until Olinger was close enough and called down from the window, “Hello, Bob,” and then he shot Olinger with the shotgun.

Olinger yelled, “And he shot me too,” and fell dead. There was an old man there who cleaned up the jail, and Billy made him cut off the shackles. Billy sent the old man out to get him a horse, and he came back with a fat little black horse that belonged to a county official.

Billy just went out, got on the horse, and as he rode out he waved his hat to the crowd of people there. Can you beat that for nerve?[1]

[1] “Oldtimer Recalls Days Of Billy The Kid,” Alamogordo Daily News, Alamogordo, Texas, August 1, 1957, pgs. 1, 6.