Blackwater Draw: Three Lives, Billy the Kid and the Murders That Started the Lincoln County War
by David S. Turk, Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, 2010, $18.95
While various folks in the “Land of Enchantment” continue to debate the question of whether Pat Garrett really killed Billy the Kid at Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory, in July 1881, David Turk, historian for the U.S. Marshals Service, continues to dig into other questions about the Kid and the Lincoln County War. Turk has written for Wild West about Sam Smith, the last surviving Regulator; Jessie Evans, an outlaw who once rode with Billy the Kid; the role of U.S. deputy marshals in the Lincoln County War; and William S. “Buck” Morton, one of the men gunned down by the Kid and the other Regulators. Now in this interesting little book (155 pages), Turk takes a closer look at Morton, as well as Frank Baker and William McCloskey—the three men murdered by the Regulators in New Mexico Territory’s isolated Blackwater (Agua Negra) Canyon on March 9, 1878. The Kid had joined the Regulators to avenge the murder of his onetime boss John Henry Tunstall. “In my opinion,” Turk writes in his introduction, “the murders of these three men, rather than the equally tragic death of British subject and businessman John Henry Tunstall, set the key explosion that ignited the Lincoln County War.”
Twice in 2006 Turk and friends searched Blackwater Canyon, in which they found many period cartridges, suggesting to them that nearly all the capturing party fired a round, but no bones (the bodies may have been moved). Their findings are detailed at the end of the book in “Report of Analysis, Agua Negra Springs.” Most of the text deals with the three victims. Morton, aVirginian who, expecting to die at the hands of his captors, had written his cousin a farewell letter, did not seem such an evil man to Turk. On the other hand, the more mysterious Frank Baker (an alias) seemingly deserved his bad reputation. “Illegal activity attracted him like a magnet,” Turk writes. William McCloskey is the most mysterious of the trio. As one of the Regulators that fateful day, he did not expect to die. Perhaps he was too moderate for the others (wanting Morton and Baker to be jailed instead of killed en route). Exactly why McCloskey was killed with the other two remains a mystery. “Of the three victims,” Turk writes, “McCloskey was the saddest case.”
Originally published in the June 2011 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
