The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws by Charles River Editors

he was an affable kid who had participated in the crimes more out of a necessity than because he was a hard criminal. According to Whitehill, the kill The Kid was credited with by the rumors were completely baseless.

Chapter 2: Henry McCarty on the Run

    ‘’Billy never talked much of the past. He was always looking into the future.” – Frank Coe

    Not surprisingly, the legends surrounding what happened next are just as colorful. One story said that Henry made it to Camp Thomas in Arizona territory, where he shot and killed a buffalo soldier with a shotgun, then took off on a stolen horse. Given that Camp Thomas did not exist yet, that story is not true.  There are also other wild tales of Billy the Kid roaming the country, slaughtering Indians and brawling in New York City.  The most likely story is that he got help from Clara Truesdell, the closet thing that Henry had to a mother at the time. Chauncey Truesdell said that his mother washed and dried Henry’s clothes and gave him food. After he spent the night on the floor, Mrs. Truesdell put Henry on a stagecoach to Clifton, a mining town in the mountains of southeast Arizona.

    Clifton was named for Henry Clifton, a prospector who made his way to Southern Arizona from Prescott to mine for gold and instead found copper ore. This Henry was not there to mine, though. He went to Clifton to find his stepfather, but when he found William and told him the story, Antrim refused to help. With nothing left to do, Henry stole clothes and a gun from his stepfather’s room and never saw him again.

    Over the next two years, Henry bounced from place to place in Arizona, perhaps earning money at a cattle ranch or the gambling halls.  In the spring of 1876, Henry heard that there was better opportunity to make money off of the soldiers at the card tables in Camp Grant, north of Tucson. Using a horse he stole from a soldier at Camp Goodwin, Henry left for Fort Grant.

    Fort Grant in the late 19 th century

    At Fort Grant, Henry began to make a name for himself as gambler and an outlaw who was particularly adept at stealing horses. He started to wear a pinky ring, which many superstitious gamblers wore for luck, and he dressed in brightly colored scarves. When he earned enough money, he bought a six-shooter. For most men of the West, a gun was a necessity, but it was even truer for the teenager that now was called Kid Antrim, a playful reference to his small physique and lack of facial hair. Indeed, Kid Antrim was smaller than most of the men he encountered and needed an equalizer.

    It seems Kid Antrim’s first opportunity to use his six-shooter came on August 17, 1877 when he crossed paths with a bully named Windy Cahill. Taking note of Henry’s small stature, Cahill amused himself by slapping Henry around until he had him down on the ground. Henry yelled for Cahill to let him up, but he wouldn’t, so Henry freed his arm and reached for his holster. He fired his gun into Cahill’s stomach. He may have been able to make a case of self-defense, but not wanting to take the chance, Henry took off, leaving Cahill to die later that night.

    On the run again, Henry changed his name to one of his most notorious monikers, William H. Bonney. Henry was now Billy. He rode a stolen horse out of Arizona and back to New Mexico. He survived the harsh late summer heat with the help of Mexican ranchers out in the open range, who took him in and gave him a meal when he needed to eat.  Mexicans had owned land in New Mexico for generations, but an influx of British and Irish immigrants was changing that. Like many, they viewed the West as the land of opportunity and came to the United States with money to spend. They invested in railroads, mining, and cattle ranches, but what they really wanted was land. With the assistance of corrupt bankers and an equally corrupt law enforcement system, many wealthy immigrants were able to take the land right out from under the Mexicans.

    Such was the case