The Coot and the Kid

On July 14, 1881, Billy the Kid was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in a dark room in New Mexico. There are several versions of the tale (some of which involve Billy surviving) but I’d like to talk about the most overlooked version of the story – the Hispanic account.

I got this version from the horse’s mouth – or nearly the horse’s mouth – Chano Silva.

Chano’s grandfather witnessed the shooting of Billy the Kid. Chano’s grandfather helped bury the Kid. And Chano was there when Billy’s headstone was placed. Chano’s oral account of Billy’s shooting is radically different from the traditional account, and it’s kind of surprising that this angle has never been fully researched until recently.

I met Chano in 2003 when I was filming a television documentary. He was 85 years old and the walking definition of an “old coot.” He wore a straw cowboy hat and stained grey coveralls. His toothless face had a couple of days growth of beard. He was gaunt, his head hung at an odd angle, and he had a lateral lisp that made him hard to understand. He was the walking definition of “bad TV.” But Chano was real.

“I knew Deluvina Maxwell, Billy’s girlfriend,” he said to me. “I would ride my horse by her house on the way home from school and she would give me a snack. She told me about the night Billy died. She said Pat Garret was scared to go into the room where Billy died!”

From there his story went on in a rambling way that combined historical facts, childhood recollections and wildly improbable assertions. Usually without pausing, so that steering him back to the point could only be done with the most incredible act of rudeness. Thus does an old coot hold his audience, like an Ancient Mariner in a cowboy hat.

But Chano’s most important assertion is one that has long been ignored by history books.

“Granddaddy said Pat shot Billy with a shotgun. Waited behind a door. When Billy came in, boom! He shot him.”

Of course, Chano said this while slouched forward, almost out of the camera frame, one eye squinted and one eye popped wide. And with his toothless lateral lisp, it came out as “Gwlandaddy thaid Pat thlot Biddy with a thlotgun.” As a producer, I knew it was bad TV. But as a person, I knew it was amazing reality.

Chano went on: “Granddaddy heard the shots and came running over. Pat came out of the house. He said ‘I shot Billy. Go see if he’s still alive.’ And Granddaddy said ‘You son-of-a-bitch, you shot him, YOU go see if he’s alive!’

That should end all the speculation about the death of Billy the Kid. Chano heard an eyewitness account. It’s a radically different account than the one in most history books but it certainly has as much claim to authenticity as Pat Garrett’s self-aggrandizing autobiography. And Chano’s story is backed up by the account of the third member of Garrett’s posse – Tip McKinney, who later told a traveling writer about Garrett’s ambush of Billy with the same details.

Yet this account of Billy’s death was overlooked for more than a century, and is only now being reconsidered by authors and scholars of the Kid’s story. Possibly the story languished simply because it was the Hispanic account, so it was ignored by an Anglo publishing industry.

Or possibly, it was a tale told by old coots… and who listens to them?

Chano had only a brief appearance in the television documentary. The executives were appalled at the way he looked and the way he spoke. And they only let me put in a brief segment because Chano’s story of Billy’s death matched McKinney’s, providing supporting evidence. Chano’s stories, his caved-in face, his raspy lisp, they all hit the cutting room floor. Chano Silva was not good TV. And he may not actually have been good history.

I spoke to one historian who rolled his eyes when I mentioned Chano, and fondly said “Chano’s stories are different each time he tells them.” And once I was out of the Chano’s personal presence, I admit some of his tales were unlikely.

But Chano was real. Never mind that his stories are suspect. He was real. And hearing his tales, for me, was a real experience of the West, the real West, the true West. His stories, even if untrue, were not lies but Myths. Joseph Campbell describes a myth as a lie that conveys the truth. Chano conveyed the truth. The truth has a lazy eye and unshaven cheeks. The truth has no teeth and doesn’t need ‘em. The truth has a lisp and a hacking cough and stained overalls. The truth is an Old Coot.