July 14 - Devil on the Run: Billy the Kid Is Gunned Down
Our Silent Sin Against the Lost
This is the day Sheriff Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid at the Maxwell Ranch in New Mexico in 1881.
In today's lesson, we will explore the tragic story of Billy the Kid's final moments and discover a profound spiritual truth about the Church's responsibility to intercede for the lost. When the last gunshot echoed through Pete Maxwell's bedroom, a notorious outlaw lay dead, but who had been praying for his soul? This moment challenges us to examine our own hearts: do we pray for the hardest cases, or do we write them off as hopeless? The enemy's greatest victory isn't when someone sins spectacularly—it's when the Church stops praying for them.
"Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you." - 1 Samuel 12:23 (NIV)
This Date in History
The bedroom was dark and still. Sheriff Pat Garrett sat on the edge of Pete Maxwell's bed, his hand resting on his revolver. The two men spoke in hushed tones about Billy the Kid's whereabouts, but Maxwell remained vague. Then came footsteps. A barefoot figure stepped into the doorway, clutching a butcher knife. In the dim light, a familiar voice asked in Spanish, "¿Quién es?"
Garrett fired twice. One bullet struck the chest. Billy the Kid was dead.
Or so the story goes.
Born Henry McCarty, later known as William H. Bonney, Billy the Kid had been living as a fugitive for three months. The 21-year-old outlaw had earned his fearsome reputation during the Lincoln County War, a violent conflict between rival factions of cattlemen and merchants that had torn through southeastern New Mexico from 1878 to 1881. Billy had aligned himself with the Regulators, a group that claimed to represent law and order but operated more like a vigilante army.
Opposing the Regulators was the Murphy-Dolan faction who were backed by local law enforcement and political power players. Sheriff William Brady of Lincoln County was closely aligned with this faction. On April 1, 1878, Billy the Kid and several other members of the Regulators ambushed Sheriff Brady and his deputies in the middle of Lincoln's main street and Brady was killed.
The Battle of Lincoln in July 1878 ended the war, but not Billy's status as a wanted outlaw. In 1880, Billy was captured by Sheriff Pat Garrett, not for killing Brady, but for a variety of other offenses including cattle rustling, jailbreaks, and the killing of other lawmen during his time as a fugitive. However, in April 1881, he was tried in Mesilla and sentenced to hang for the murder of Sheriff William Brady, even though three years had passed since the killing. This was largely a political move. By that point, Billy had become a high-profile outlaw and a symbol of lawlessness in New Mexico.
Pat Garrett wasn't just any lawman. He had known Billy personally. Both men had frequented the same saloons and social circles around Fort Sumner, where Garrett worked as a bartender and Billy rustled cattle with local gangs. When Garrett was elected Lincoln County Sheriff in November 1880, his intimate knowledge of Billy's habits and hideouts made him the perfect man to bring in the outlaw. Their relationship transformed from casual acquaintance to deadly cat-and-mouse game, with Garrett displaying a relentless determination that matched Billy's cunning and resourcefulness.
The manhunt for Billy had been methodical and exhausting. Garrett first captured Billy in December 1880 at Stinking Springs after a siege that left Billy's companion Charlie Bowdre dead. Billy was transported to Mesilla for trial, where Judge Warren Bristol sentenced him to hang for Sheriff Brady's murder. The judge's words were harsh: "You are sentenced to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead." Billy reportedly responded with characteristic defiance: "And you can go to hell, hell, hell."
His jailbreak was the stuff of Western legend.
Awaiting his execution in the Lincoln County jail in late April 1881 for the killing of Sheriff Brady, Billy had been left in the custody of two deputies. While Garrett was away collecting taxes in White Oaks, Deputy Bob Olinger took five other prisoners across the street for a meal, leaving James Bell alone to guard Billy at the jail. Billy asked to use the outhouse behind the courthouse, and on their return up the stairs to his cell, he slipped out of his handcuffs and beat Bell with the loose end of the cuffs. During the struggle, Billy grabbed Bell's revolver and fatally shot him in the back as Bell tried to escape. With his legs still shackled, Billy broke into Garrett's office and took a loaded shotgun left behind by Olinger. When Olinger rushed back to investigate the gunshots, Billy was waiting at the upstairs window. "Look up, old boy, and see what you get," Billy called before killing his second guard with Olinger's own weapon. He then commandeered a horse and rode out of town in broad daylight, somehow slipping off his leg irons during the escape.
He vanished into the familiar scrublands of southeastern New Mexico. For weeks, he hid in plain sight around Fort Sumner, relying on Hispanic allies and a patchwork of sympathizers. His familiarity with the area bred confidence and carelessness.
Acting on tips that Billy was hiding near Fort Sumner, Garrett and deputies John Poe and Thomas McKinney rode to the settlement on July 14. They chose to question Pete Maxwell, a prominent local rancher whose family had operated the area's largest ranch since the 1860s. The confrontation unfolded with shocking suddenness around midnight.
While Garrett's deputies waited outside, the sheriff entered Maxwell's bedroom and roused him for questioning. Billy had awakened hungry and decided to cut meat from a beef carcass hanging outside Maxwell's house, which explained the knife in his hand. As Billy entered the dark room, he nearly stepped on the deputies positioned outside the door. Startled and suspicious, he backed into the bedroom asking "¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?"
Garrett recognized his voice immediately. He fired twice. The first shot struck near the heart. The second lodged in the wall behind Maxwell's bed. Billy collapsed and died on the spot.
The killing shocked the community. Many locals admired Billy, or at least saw him as a folk hero. Angry crowds gathered outside the Maxwell house, forcing Garrett and his deputies to barricade themselves in the bedroom until sunrise. An inquest was quickly assembled, and Postmaster Milnor Rudolph led a coroner's jury that ruled the death justified. Billy was buried the next day beside Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre in the cemetery at Fort Sumner.
Controversy followed. Some claimed Garrett had killed the wrong man. Others argued the body didn't resemble Billy, or that the real outlaw had escaped and fled south. One man—"Brushy Bill" Roberts—emerged in the 1950s claiming to be Billy himself. His petition for a pardon was ultimately rejected, and modern historians have found no compelling evidence to support the theory.
The weight of testimony points overwhelmingly to Garrett's account. Billy's friends identified the body. His death was witnessed, documented, and mourned. Still, the legend lives on.
He wasn't the most prolific killer of the Old West, nor the most successful outlaw. But something in the mix of youth, rebellion, and charisma turned Billy the Kid into one of America's most enduring myths. His legend grew rapidly after his death, fueled by dime novel writers eager for dramatic tales and by Pat Garrett himself, whose 1882 book The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid blurred the line between biography and folklore. In trying to justify the killing, Garrett helped immortalize the very man he had hunted—ensuring that Billy the Kid would ride on in the imagination of every generation that followed.
Historical Context
In 1881, the American frontier was rapidly closing, but New Mexico Territory remained one of the last bastions of the lawless Old West. The territory would not achieve statehood for another thirty-one years, and vast stretches of land operated under minimal federal oversight. Local law enforcement was often corrupt or ineffective, with sheriffs and judges frequently aligned with powerful business interests rather than justice. The Lincoln County War had exposed these deep-seated problems, revealing how cattle barons, merchants, and politicians could manipulate the legal system for personal gain while ordinary citizens suffered the consequences.
The conflict that made Billy the Kid famous was fundamentally an economic war disguised as a legal dispute. The Murphy-Dolan faction controlled most of Lincoln County's commerce through monopolistic practices, forcing ranchers and farmers to buy supplies at inflated prices and sell their goods below market value. When English entrepreneur John Tunstall established a competing general store and bank, he threatened this stranglehold on the local economy. Tunstall's murder in February 1878 sparked the violence that would consume the territory for years, with both sides recruiting gunmen and claiming legal authority for their actions. The federal government's inability to restore order highlighted the challenges of governing America's remaining frontier territories, where traditional law enforcement structures often proved inadequate against organized criminal enterprises operating across vast, sparsely populated landscapes.
Did You Know?
Pat Garrett's biography of Billy the Kid, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, was a commercial failure when first published in 1882, but original copies became extremely rare commodities by the 1960s, with one 1969 source describing the original 1882 edition as "exceedingly rare."
The Maxwell ranch house where Billy the Kid was killed no longer exists, having fallen into disrepair shortly after the shooting and eventually being completely washed away during the catastrophic Pecos River floods of 1937.
Billy the Kid was allegedly romantically involved with Paulita Maxwell, Pete Maxwell's younger sister, and some historians theorize that Pete betrayed Billy to Sheriff Garrett specifically to end this relationship, possibly because Paulita was pregnant with Billy's child. However, other historians and some local accounts suggest Paulita denied the romance herself, that her pregnancy by Billy is unsubstantiated, and the rest is speculative.
There was no official coroner's report filed for Billy the Kid's death in New Mexico territorial records, and in 1951, the Fourth Judicial District Attorney confirmed that such a report "is not now, and never has been, among the records in this office," creating ongoing legal questions about the killing.
Pat Garrett had difficulty collecting the $500 reward for Billy's capture, and when the New Mexico Territorial Legislature finally voted to pay him in February 1882, they incorrectly dated Billy's death as occurring "on or about the month of August, 1881," getting even this basic fact wrong in the official record.
Today’s Reflection
The bedroom fell silent after the gunshots. Billy the Kid lay dead on Pete Maxwell's floor, his 21 years of life ended in an instant. Within hours, the news would spread across New Mexico Territory and beyond. Newspapers would trumpet the death of the notorious outlaw. Lawmen would breathe easier. Citizens would feel safer. A killer had been killed.
But in all the celebration and relief that must have occurred, one can't help but wonder: was there anyone that would miss Billy? Was there anyone that loved him? Who cared about him?
Plenty of people were probably praying Billy would get caught. But who, if anyone, had been praying for Billy?
"Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you." 1 Samuel 12:23 (NIV)
Samuel spoke these words to a rebellious people who had rejected God's direct rule over them. They had demanded a king like the pagan nations around them. They had spurned the Lord who had delivered them from Egypt, led them through the wilderness, and established them in the Promised Land. By every measure, they deserved God's judgment.
Yet Samuel refused to stop praying for them.
This wasn't mere politeness or religious duty. Samuel understood something profound: ceasing to pray for the rebellious is sin. Not just neglect. Not just pastoral oversight. Sin against the Lord himself.
Billy the Kid had become exactly what his enemies called him: an outlaw, a killer, a threat to civilized society. The Lincoln County War had hardened him into something dangerous. His escape from jail had made him desperate. His reputation had grown so fearsome that mothers used his name to frighten children into obedience.
He was the kind of person churches whisper about but rarely weep over.
How easily we slip into this pattern. We see the drug dealer on the corner and feel righteous anger instead of burden. We watch the politician we despise and feel justified hatred instead of intercession. We encounter the family member who has rejected faith and feel frustrated disappointment instead of broken-hearted prayer.
We become judge and jury for souls we should be lifting to heaven's throne.
The Church today faces a subtle but deadly temptation: replacing prayer with posting, intercession with indignation, weeping with writing. It's easier to tweet about the culture's darkness than to travail for the lost in that darkness. Simpler to debate theology than to battle in prayer. More satisfying to be right than to be burdened.
But God's heart breaks for the hardest cases.
"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV)
Everyone. Not just the respectable sinners. Not just the ones who clean up nicely. Everyone includes the Billy the Kids of our generation: the gang members, the addicts, the abusers, the God-haters, the church-burners, the hope-killers.
When we stop praying for them, we declare ourselves wiser than God about who deserves mercy.
Consider what might have happened if someone in Fort Sumner had been interceding for Billy the Kid that July night. Not just hoping he would leave town or get what he deserved, but actually praying for his soul. Crying out to God for his salvation. Believing that even an outlaw's heart could be transformed by divine grace.
We'll never know. But we do know this: God was still calling Billy's name right up until Pat Garrett's finger pulled that trigger.
"Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." Romans 10:1 (NIV)
Paul wrote these words about people who had rejected Christ, persecuted the Church, and opposed the Gospel. The very people who had made his life miserable were the ones he prayed for most desperately. His heart's desire wasn't their destruction but their salvation.
This is the mark of spiritual maturity: our prayers for the lost grow more fervent as their rebellion grows more fierce.
Every community has its Billy the Kids. The ones everyone has given up on. The names that make people shake their heads and change the subject. The faces that appear in arrest reports so often that compassion fatigue sets in.
These are exactly the people God is calling you to pray for.
Not to pray that they'll get caught. Not to pray that they'll finally face consequences. Not to pray that they'll stop bothering everyone else.
Pray that they'll encounter the living God. Pray that his love will break through their hardness. Pray that someone will speak truth into their darkness. Pray that the same grace that reached you will reach them.
The enemy's greatest victory isn't when someone sins spectacularly. It's when the Church stops praying for them. When we write them off, hell celebrates. When we give up on them, darkness wins a quiet triumph.
Billy the Kid died with a bullet in his chest, but the greater tragedy may be that he died without intercessors on their knees.
Don't let that be true of the outlaws in your world. God hasn't given up on them yet.
Neither should you.
Practical Application
Choose one person in your community who seems unreachable or beyond hope, someone whose name makes others shake their heads or change the subject. Commit to praying for their salvation every day for the next month, not that they'll face consequences or leave everyone alone, but that God's love will break through their hardness and someone will speak truth into their darkness. Write their name in your Bible next to today's verse as a reminder that ceasing to pray for the rebellious is sin against the Lord himself, and that the same grace that reached you can reach them too.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we confess that too often we stop praying for those who seem beyond hope, replacing intercession with indignation and weeping with judgment. Forgive us for declaring ourselves wiser than You about who deserves mercy. Give us hearts that break for the hardest cases, the ones everyone has given up on, the Billy the Kids of our generation who live and die without intercessors on their knees. Help us to see them through Your eyes of love and to pray with the same fervor that Paul had for those who opposed him. Transform our anger into burden, our frustration into faith, and our despair into desperate prayer for their salvation. Let us never stop praying for the outlaws in our world, knowing that You have not given up on them yet. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Final Thoughts
The most dangerous moment in a lost soul's life isn't when they sin most spectacularly, but when the Church stops praying for them. In that silence, hell wins a quiet victory that echoes through eternity. Every outlaw, every rebel, every seemingly hopeless case deserves someone on their knees before the throne of grace. When we cease to pray for the rebellious, we sin against the very God who never stopped calling their name. The tragedy isn't just that Billy the Kid died with a bullet in his chest, but that he may have died without anyone weeping over his soul. Don't let that be true of the outlaws in your world.
Also On This Date In History
July 14 - Revolutionary Fury: The Storming of the Bastille
This is the day the Bastille prison in Paris was stormed by revolutionaries in 1789, marking the beginning of the French Revolution.
If you’ve made it this far down the page can you do me a favor? Let me know what you thought about today’s newsletter. Leave a comment or like (❤️) this post. I would really appreciate it.
You’ve inspired me again, thanks!
I’ll be speaking to our new Pastor about, perhaps, including a mention of those who flout the law during our prayers for intentions, that they may find God and change their ways. Saul only changed his ways when God intervened and then he became a true believer!
It will take a little while because I am trying to get him to approve a plan to minister to those who are suffering or have family members who are suffering from substance abuse.
Have a great and blessed day, Jason!
Wow, it seems that the movie "Young Guns II" was pretty accurate, a shocker for Hollywood.