One Minute of Murder in Lincoln
By Brandon Dickson
Artwork by Angie Hinojosa

On April 28th, 1881, just after six o’clock in the evening, things were quiet in Lincoln. Sheriff Pat Garrett had left town the previous day to tend to other duties and had warned the guards not to take any chances with their most dangerous prisoner. Deputies Olinger and Bell and their prisoners had started to shuffle around in anticipation of the dinner ahead. Both guards and prisoners marked time passing by each meal. Olinger, the more dominant personality, ate his dinner first, every evening with the other inmates.  Bell was left with a single prisoner. 

Olinger gathered the five other prisoners, all of whom were being held for murder. The deputy walked his captives down the stairs of the courthouse, out the back door, around the side of the building, through the corral gates, and across the street to the Wortley. Bell was now alone with Billy the Kid. Bob Olinger’s hatred of the Kid was well known and was rooted in the Lincoln County War. Bob wanted desperately to be known for having played a part in the Kid’s death. Deputy Bell also had reason to wish the Kid harm, as Billy was blamed for the murder of Bell’s friend James Carlyle in White Oaks the previous November.

The Kid had been a prisoner at Lincoln for a week or so, and in 14 days, he was due to be hanged. Olinger and Bell, started to relax as they fell prey to routine and complacency. From his window, Billy would watch Olinger and the other prisoners walk to the Wortley Hotel. After a few days, the Kid knew the patterns of his guards, and could estimate how long Olinger would be gone.

A few moments after seeing the last prisoner straggle out of sight and into the Wortley, the Kid asked to use the outhouse. Not a huge surprise to Bell, this common activity would not have aroused suspicion in the deputy, but he would have been more alert and aware that this situation required vigilance. The Kid, in scheming and waiting for his chance, had mentally tested his plan and paid close attention to details as he came and went to the privy. When the deputy and his prisoner moved from the outhouse into the building, neither of them knew what awaited them. 

The Kid and Deputy Bell came up the stairs. At that time, there were five steps up from the ground floor, a small landing, then the steep climb up the stairway. The Kid hurried his pace slightly. He turned right at the second-floor landing and slipped his right hand from its shackle. Bell, a few steps behind, noticed Billy’s movement. Perhaps he thought the Kid was having yet another joke. He reached the top steps and kept his eye on the Kid. Instinctively, he would have lowered his hand down to his gun, sensing the potential danger.

As Bell’s hand reached down for the gun at his side, the Kid rushed at Bell, striking the deputy in his head with the cold metal shackles. While Bell struggled to protect his head from another blow, the Kid was able to get the deputy’s gun. Now his prisoner was armed…and Bell had to do something to stop it. As the Kid cocked the revolver and began to give a command to his captor, Bell reached out and grabbed the gun. Billy’s shackles caused both men to lose their balance and stumble to the floor. Bell clung to the gun, and a shot was fired. Bell was hit.

[1:00 until Olinger] 

Bell was in shock but still held tight to the gun. All his body could do was cling to the pistol. The Kid then struck Bell with his handcuffs, several more times in the head. The pain was too much, and Bell released his grip. The struggle on the stairs had lasted seconds, but this was precious time lost for an escapee. Billy got to his feet. From the top of the stairway to the armory is about six paces. The Kid shuffled to the door and, with a quick bump of his shoulder, pushed the door open. 

[0:50 until Olinger]

The Kid quickly grabbed another pistol (he now had two) and old Bob’s big, shiny, new Whitney shotgun. Checking that his weapons were loaded, Billy shuffled back through the armory door toward his cell, with a shotgun in one hand, a rifle in the other, and two pistols now shoved into his britches. 

[0:25 until Olinger]

It is roughly 30 paces or about 12 to 15 seconds from the armory to the northeast window of Billy’s cell. Olinger was surely on his way. The Kid scooted and shuffled his shackled feet as fast as he could.

[0:10 until Olinger]

Olinger and his prisoners had just sat down for supper. Reportedly, old Bob ordered pot roast (the only redeeming quality I have found in him). Just as the men were getting their plates of supper, the initial shot was heard. Bob stood up, excited and likely a little angry at the interruption, as well as at the prospect that Bell was the one who shot Billy. “Bell has killed the Kid!” Olinger exclaimed. He quickly ordered his five prisoners to get up and move. Fifteen to twenty seconds after the gunshot, Olinger walked out of the Wortley dining room with his captives. 

[0:40 until the Kid]

Just as Billy yanked the gun free from the deputy’s grasp, Bell began to fade rapidly. He’d lost a substantial amount of blood from his wounds. Shock started to take over his motor functions, and muscle memory was all that was left in his confused brain. Bell slid limply down much of the stairs, dragging along the walls. His legs found familiar territory beneath them at the landing of the stairway, just five steps from the ground floor and a way out of the building. Bell stepped through the door, his vision clouded by blood and hazy through the fog of shock. He saw Godfrey Gauss through the blood that now streamed down his face. Bell stumbled toward the old man. Fifteen steps out the courthouse door, Bell’s last view was the beautiful hills of Lincoln; and into the arms of old Godfrey Gauss, he fell. 

[0:25 until Olinger]

Godfrey Gauss had been working in the garden out behind the courthouse. He shared a small shack there with Sam Wortley, who had also been working in the garden that day. Gauss claimed he heard “a shot and then a scuffle in the stairway.” As Gauss went to investigate the commotion, Bell stumbled out the back door and right towards him, collapsing at the old man’s feet. Gauss checked the wounded man to see if he could do anything, but Bell was dead. Gauss jumped up and realized he needed to warn Olinger. It is 25 paces from where Bell collapsed to the gate where Gauss would need to get through to warn Olinger. Seventeen seconds after Bell died at his feet, Gauss reached the gate to the corral on the northeast side of the courthouse.

[0:13 until Olinger]

Olinger quickly ordered his prisoners to stay at the Wortley. He moved across the lawn towards the courthouse. From the yard of the Wortley to the gate of the courthouse’s northeast side is 42 paces. It took Olinger just over 32 hurried yet cautious seconds to cross the street and reach the gate. Bob could hear Godfey yelling something. Olinger crossed through the fence and into the corral. 

[0:05 until the Kid]

The Kid had armed himself and shuffled towards the window overlooking the Wortley. Gauss had run to the corral to warn Deputy Olinger, and Bob had stepped into the corral next to the courthouse. It was 13 ominous steps from the fence to below the window where Bob met his fate. As Olinger and Gauss came within ten feet of each other, the old man told Olinger that Bell was dead. At this same moment, a flash of movement in the window above the doorway to the post office caught Bob’s eye. The Kid appeared in the window and fired a shotgun blast into the head and chest of Olinger. It had been less than one minute since the first shot was fired, two deputies were dead, and the Kid was now well armed.

Just as Olinger heard Gauss and realized Bell was dead, he looked up to see the Kid. Olinger’s hand likely held his gun, ready for a potential threat, but Billy did not hesitate. A single shot from one barrel of Bob’s own shotgun tore through his chest and skull. Olinger was dead. Godfrey Gauss was only a few feet away from Bob when he was killed, and the old man turned and ran out of pure terror. The Kid yelled at him not to worry as he had no interest in harming Gauss. The Kid told Godfrey to fetch a tool to break his shackles, and Gauss quickly ran to grab a small pickaxe. 

While Gauss went to acquire tools, the Kid grabbed the Winchester and the shotgun, and shuffled out to the balcony. As Billy stepped out, townsfolk had started to realize that something was going on at the courthouse and began to drift in towards the excitement. Billy walked across the balcony, surveying the town and looking for anyone who might be coming to join the fight. A man named J.A. LaRue, who managed the Wortley at the time, started to come to the aid of the slain deputies. When he stepped from the crowd at the Wortley and moved towards the courthouse, Billy quickly aimed his weapon and made clear the consequences if LaRue took another step. At that same time, another man moved forward with ideas of stopping this outlaw; but Mr. Lily’s wife grabbed his arm and helped persuade him to mind his own business, before the Kid made him join Olinger and Bell. 

Soon Godfrey Gauss appeared with a small pickaxe and tossed it up to the Kid. Billy then sent Gauss to fetch a horse. The Kid also told him to send up Sam Wortley to “make himself useful.” Gauss scurried off to his next task.

 A sizable crowd began to form around the area, and Billy took advantage of the audience. The Kid paced back and forth across the balcony, yelling that he wished to hurt no one else and had had no choice but to kill Bell.

(Billy addresses the crowd)

Then, almost as an afterthought, or perhaps to punctuate the speech he just made, the Kid then fired the second barrel of Bob’s Whitney shotgun into Olinger’s corpse. Then Billy broke the shotgun by smashing it across the balcony railing, breaking the gun near the trigger guard and butt stock. The Kid tossed the remaining piece down at Olinger. 

Once he was satisfied that no one was moving against him, and hearing Sam Wortley coming up the stairs, Billy went inside the courthouse. There, he and Sam Wortley worked on his leg irons. It took Gauss some time to catch a horse and get it saddled. By the time Gauss reappeared and shouted up to Billy that a horse was ready, it had been almost an hour since the first shot of the escape. 

After working for an hour, the Kid and Sam Wortley were only able to free one leg. The Kid grabbed a cartridge belt from the armory and used it to help hold the leg chains, as well as his newly acquired pistols. Billy then walked down the stairway, over the pool of blood where Bell had been shot, down the blood-smeared stairs, and out the back door. As he turned the corner, he saw Bell’s body. As he passed the dead man, the Kid remarked that he was sorry to have had to kill the deputy. When Billy passed by Olinger’s bloody and mangled corpse, the Kid gave him a light kick with his boot, allegedly saying,“You won’t corral me up again!”

The crowd of onlookers now numbered around three dozen, and they all stood around, watching Billy climb onto his new mount. As he did so, the horse got spooked from the chains at the Kid’s side, and Billy fell off.

The Kid then told Alexander Nunnelly, one of the prisoners still nearby, to go fetch the horse.  However, Nunnelly was worried that his own murder charge would be made worse if he helped the Kid. 

Billy pointed a gun at the man, saying, “Tell them I made you do it.” With that motivation, Nunnelly quickly policed up the renegade horse. His horse now recaptured, the Kid climbed back on. Reports say he shook hands with several folks, then said, “Adios Boys,” and kicked his horse forward. And with that, Billy the Kid disappeared into the New Mexico sunset, an ever-shrinking shadow on the road west out of Lincoln.