The Billy Dilemma

[Buck Grizzly]

Anybody seen this link?? (probably old news with you guys, but I hadn’t seen it before anyway)

 

 http://www.historicalwesternphotos.com/billy_the_kid_and_friends

 

 

Most of these types of conversations get lost in the can't’s, couldn't’s, and wouldn't have happened. People make up their minds and at that point one way or the other their can only be one possible consideration. Except it is a very real reality that in this period of time in the countries development that men did in fact reinvent themselves as someone else. Taking on new totally different names, or altered names (how many immigrants changed/altered their names to be more adaptable, to fit in, too their new surroundings, their new home), as well as completely uncharacteristically original identities, with little to no resistance from outsiders, no intrusive questioning or reason to be questioned, and/or objection to that identity that is claimed. I mean it’s not like something that he had never done before.

 

 

 Aliases, Monikers, and Nicknames of Billy the Kid;

Henry McCarty

William Henry McCarty

Henry Antrim

Billy Antrim

William Antrim

Kid Antrim

Austin Antrim

 The Kid

 William H. Bonney

 Billy Bonney

 Billy Kid

 Kid Bonney

 Billy the Kid

 Captain Kidd

 Billy Coyle (questionable)

 Billy Donovan (questionable)

 Billy Conley (questionable)

 El Chivato

 El Bandito

 Little Casino

 The Young Kid

 Bilitos 　 　

 

 There were 'several' people over the years to make the claim that they were indeed the notorious outlaw, with little to no evidence to support a contrary belief. People insist that DNA has proven otherwise with a few, but DNA from what exactly? A 100 year old blood spot from a bench that could have been? A body from under a grave marker that isn’t the actual marker placed in a spot nobody can even confirm is the actual burial spot, in a grave yard where graves have been not only been relocated from but a relocation that was done by the government (when was the last time they were efficient at doing something??), some of the bodies of which we speak of are now located under a highway, or so the rumor is anyway?? A mother’s grave? Who’s mother? Is it even really his mother? How many aliases did this guy have again?? And a picture? A picture that could be just as much a red herring as the numerous names that were used, in fact it could be the biggest deliberate bit of deception within the entire story, yet so many are willing to place all their faith in that one image as the only true one?

 

 

 I mean if you are going to throw maybe’s around, then maybe that isn’t even a real picture of ‘Billy’ at all. Look at how many that are claimed to be him today for one reason or another?

 

 　 There is so many inconsistencies, so much mud in the muddy water’s it’s rather amazing that anyone would make a definitive statement on the matter without having any amount of skepticism on their part. That to me is amazing. 　 Is it really so amazing on one hand that the notoriety of the individual was so great that it (the legend) couldn’t just be left alone to die a quite death? Or that in a time when there was no criminal data bases, computer technology, photo identifications, DNA libraries, or even certificates of birth that are on any form of electronic cataloguing that was kept on file for research purposes, that somebody/anybody couldn’t have just walked away? Slipped away out of the lime light? Camouflaged by the distractions created by others? Out of one life into another especially if a body was suddenly made available to take your place, and buried with the utmost expedience? Is it really so amazingly beyond belief that someone wouldn‘t cease the opportunity as a chance to actually free one‘s self? 　

 

Am I saying it happened? NO. And I am not trying to convince anyone otherwise. Am I asking is it a possibility if all the stars aligned just right, even for just a moment? Most definitely. 　

 

Given the chance to walk away, and find the situations you were dealing with completely dissolved away, never needing to be addressed or dealt with ever again. Just think how often that goes through the minds of so many people in their lives. But for him especially. Standing on the outside, seeing the news of his death unfold from the safety of hundreds of miles away, reading about the legend as it snowballs, as if it never really happened, mostly because you know hardly any of what they say did, but what did is just a distant memory. No matter the seed has been planted and now it is up to you to start anew. Finding a job, new friends and relationships. Taking a wife, creating a family, living a non-eventful dull existence, as an average Joe in a nondescript community, where little to nothing exciting rarely happens anyway, but finding yourself in such a situation, with everything to look forward too, and no cloud always hovering diligently overhead. 　

 

Just think of the implications. After all you had been through, cheating death under so many complicated challenges, and surviving, would you toss it all away, and throw yourself back into the caldron of boiling water by exposing yourself as what you were, or more to the point what people think you were? Or would it behoove you to just keep it to yourself and allow the past to be just that, the past with no connections to the present or your present self? Especially if there was others who would be effected? Could you bring yourself to be so selfish? Let’s be real who would believe you 20-30 years after the fact? Probably NOT!! Well nobody who cared about you anyway, but most anybody who would jump on the opportunity to exploit you, and make a buck at your expense. And what about the law? Would they be so forgiving? Or would there always be the score that needed to be settled? 　

 

What an interesting concept for a story? What an interesting set of possibilities?

[Dave McGowan]

When the Fraser River gold rush started (1858) Governor Douglas wrote in his diary that the thousands who invaded that year were mostly (80%) from the US. How many used the same name coming down the gangplank in Victoria as they had used climbing the gangplank in San Francisco, Spokan, etc.???

From then until the early fifties there were several hundred thousands who came to Canada from Europe, GB, Austrailia and the US. What were, are, will be their names? Did the family calling themselves Smith who came into Alberta at Sweetgrass in1898 and claimed to come from Texas actually come from Georgia?

[Buck Grizzly]

My point exactly. For anyone to say that it couldn't happen when it happened on a regular basis in those days seems extremely naive (once again I am not saying it happened only that I am intrigued by the possibilities).

 

It makes a fellow wonder why the Hollywood crowd hasn't tried to tackle it from the fictional standpoint that what if he did survive, as in the case of the movie Blackthorn.

 

Psychologically speaking how could this effect a young man who finds himself suddenly in the ho-hum life of a store clerk in San Antonio, or as a deputy for strict hard core law and order type in Prescott, or a gambler in Denver, or off to Canada for the gold rush scene, or finding himself in a similar situation he just escaped from in Northern California. I mean the possibilities of where to go from that dark night in Ft Sumner is unlimited. But more to the point how the mental state of someone like this could hold up, knowing who at what he is but not having the ability to share that information, and even if he did, would anybody believe him?

[Buck Grizzly]

Too far fetched I guess?? Guess we will just have to hope for more Cowboys and Aliens or transformers, comic book hero, and Johnny (sparrow/crow) Depps, or the Harlequin Channel, renditions of the old west.