Interesting trio

Comment by Steve McCarty on June 17, 2010 at 11:15am

If this blurry photo we might see Billy and the two young women he spent a lot of time with during his final days. We see them on a fishing trip. Billy loved to hunt and fish. He fished with Willi Chisum sometimes. If one studies the half stock Winchester that he his holding one can see that it's a half octagonal, half round barrel. A rifle is on display in the Ruidoso River Museum in Ruidoso, NM. The barrel has been cut where it goes from octagonal to round and a new front sight was afixed. I think there is a good chance Billy is holding that very same rifle. As I recall Garrett collected it after he shot the Kid. Anyway, if the pic shown here is authentic then I think it adds provenance to that rifle in Ruidoso.

Do the two women look like Deluvina and Paulita? I think so, but in this, purported by myself, tintype they are much younger than they are in other known images. The kid looks thin and I think, athletic. He strikes a jaunty pose. Does he look confident and unafraid? I think so. His hands do look pretty small, but not childlike. If this is indeed Billy, he shows as a handsome young man and he is "well formed" as people who knew him said.

Comment by Steve McCarty on August 1, 2010 at 10:48am

The young lady on the right looks like the picture of an older Paulita Maxwell that we see in Nolan's "Reader". The young girl on the left is Deluvina Maxwell when she was much younger that she is in that famous picture, taken soon before her death in 1927.

I wish I had a clearer copy of this picture. The owner said to me that he had one on disc.

Comment by tim davis on January 5, 2012 at 1:59am

this is certainly billy. note the snakelike fingers. the guy was thin as paper when viewed from the side, making him near impossible to hit in a gunfight. but athletic looking, yes. someone said he had weak shoulders, but instead he was described as small but compact and solid.

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