01/10/2025
On January 10, 1880, Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, more famously known as Billy the Kid, shoots and kills a Texan named Joe Grant inside a saloon in Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. “We, the Hispanics, were talking, some standing at the bar, and others sitting on chairs,” local sheepherder Paco Anaya later recalled. “Grant ordered two drinks, one for him and one for Billy.” Grant took exception when Bonney happily invites a fifty-six-year-old Indian from Puerto de Luna named Francisco Tafolla to join them, declaring that he couldn’t “line up with someone who lines up with Indians.” As Tafolla storms out the saloon to retrieve his firearm -- intending the kill the Tejano -- Grant draws his revolver while the Kid’s back is turned.
“Hey, Bill!” Grant shouts.
Bonney spins around and lucks out when Grant’s pistol either misfires or the hammer merely lands on an empty chamber. The Kid draws one of his own revolvers and shoots the Texan three times in the chin area on the grounds of self-defense. Bonney asks Paco Anaya and his amigos to serve as witnesses and accompany him to Justice of the Peace Alejandro Segura’s home in Cabra Arenoso. On the way, they encounter an angry Fancisco Tafolla, who is dismayed at losing the chance to shoot Grant himself. “The judge interrogated us all, and then decided that Billy was free,” recalled Paco Anaya.
When asked why the shooting occurred a short time later, Bonney replies, "Oh, nothing. It was a game of two, and I got there first."
Source - "Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático," by James B. Mills, and "I Buried Billy," by Paco Anaya.
