by J. Young
On November 15th 1880 the Kid with Dave Rudabaugh, Billy Wilson and a few others were on a trail between Las Vegas and White Oaks and stopped by Jim Greathouse’s ranch station to rest and “whiskey” Jim Greathouse bought some of the 16 horses they were traveling with, probably stolen from Alexander Grzelachowski as the stories say.

A few days later the crew pulls into White Oaks and places the remaining horses at The Dietrichs Livery stable. A story or two will tell you that the gang went into a general store for supplies and left without paying. It’s possibly true, it also says that if they did have any phony money it probably wasn’t much more than what was owed to Wilson for the stable. Barney Mason, a known snitch, saw the boys had gone straight to Sheriff Will Hudgens. Sheriff Hudgens gathered a posse, including JW Bell and James Carlyle, a friend to the Sheriff and deputized blacksmith. I don’t see any evidence that Agent Wild was in the posse but he may have been. Reports say that the posse tracked them to Coyote Springs and opened fire on them while they were setting up camp killing 2 of their horses. The gang fled riding doubles and were tracked to the Greathouse Station and surrounded the house. Joe Steck, the cook, stepped out of the house startling the Posse. They raised their guns and Joe surrendered himself. Sheriff Hutchens hands the cook a note to take to Billy

The Cook Joe Steck recalls;“I took the note in and delivered it to the one I knew to be Billy the Kid, “He read the paper to his compadres, who all laughed at the idea of surrender.”

He returned outside along with Jim Greathouse with a message from inside refusing a surrender. One of the Posse yells out for Billy Wilson to surrender himself, Wilson refuses and asks James Carlyle to come in and talk. Sheriff Hudgens agrees to let Carlyle go in and tries to talk the boys into surrendering. Greathouse remained outside with the posse as Carlyle entered the house.

Once Carlyle got inside, it was just before noon. Carlyle was searched for weapons and sat down. Inside the boys are planning to wait until dark and are planning to make a break for it.

Steck remembers the Kid forcing Carlyle to drink so much that just after noon, he was “under the influence of liquor and insisting on going out.” A couple hours go by and someone yells from outside; “come out or we will shoot Greathouse” Silence for a minute until posseman Joe Eakers “accidentally” fires his weapon. During the shot Carlyle panics, thinking that they killed Greathouse and jumps through a closed window landing in the snow, filled with bullet holes.

“I stopped and turned, when, crash, a man came through a window, bang, bang, the man’s dying yell, and poor Carlyle tumbled to the ground with three bullets in him,” Joe Steck recalls.

The men in the posse claim Billy’s gang shot Carlyle from inside. Billy later claimed it was the posse shooting Carlyle as they were scared when he leaped through the window. In the end, no one was actually charged for the murder, indicating that it was the posse that killed Carlyle.

Later the boys were able to just ride out unharmed as the posse, most likely the accidental killers of Carlyle, skinned out. They returned the next day, buried Carlyle and burned The Greathouse station to the ground.