Billy the Kid Part 5: The Road to Lincoln – The Return of the Kid

Show Notes

Billy the Kid wasn’t born a legend — the road made him one.
In Billy the Kid Part 5: The Road to Lincoln – The Return of the Kid, Dark Dialogue: Gallows & Gunfights rides straight into the violence, betrayal, and frontier politics that pushed a teenage ranch hand into the center of the Lincoln County War.

This episode dives deep into the pivotal stretch of 1877–1878, when Billy fled Arizona, returned to New Mexico, and walked right into the storm that would define his life forever. Using immersive sound design, historical transcripts, and narrative reconstruction, we take you through:

🔥 Key Moments in This Episode

• Billy’s chaotic escape from Arizona after killing Frank “Windy” Cahill

• His near-death trek across the desert and rescue by the Jones family

• Joining Jesse Evans’ gang and drifting north into Lincoln County

• The theft that landed him in jail — and the unexpected mercy of John Tunstall

• Life on the Tunstall Ranch and the bond that forged Billy’s loyalties

• The escalating legal warfare between Tunstall’s faction and The House

• The murder of John Tunstall — the shot that ignited the Lincoln County War

• The birth of the Regulators and their bloody oath of vengeance

• The ambush of Sheriff William Brady

• The Battle at Blazer’s Mill and the death of Dick Brewer

• Frank McNab’s brief leadership, Seven Rivers retaliation, and the rise of Doc Scurlock

• The frontier’s descent into chaos as Lincoln braces for the coming siege

This is one of the most important episodes in the entire Billy the Kid arc — the moment where the lines between justice, vengeance, and survival dissolve into gunsmoke.

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What is Dark Dialogue: Gallows and Gunfights?

Gallows & Gunfights explores the real history of the American frontier—where violence, survival, and reputation shaped life in the Old West.

Hosted by Dark Dialogue creator John McColl, the series examines the outlaws, lawmen, and conflicts that defined the era, separating documented events from the myths that grew around them.

From the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid to lesser-known cases buried in frontier history, each episode breaks down what actually happened—and what didn’t.

Gallows & Gunfights focuses on one goal: cutting through legend to uncover the truth behind the West.

John: Every outlaw has a point
of no return for Billy the kid.

It wasn't a gunfight, it was a road.

A long, empty stretch of dust and
regret that ran east from Arizona

territory, carrying him back
into New Mexico and into legend.

He left the territory once before a
boy with quick hands and bad luck.

Wanted for a petty theft that turned
into a death sentence In Silver City.

He'd been just Henry
McCarty or Kid Antrim.

To the few who bothered to remember him.

He'd robbed a Chinese laundry for a
handful of clothes, got caught and

slipped a jail window like a ghost that
escaped marked his first true crime.

And his first taste of freedom
earned through desperation.

Arizona was supposed to be a clean state.

It wasn't.

In Camp Grant.

He found work breaking
horses and playing cards.

A drifter trying to stay ahead
of his past, but Billy had a

temper that burned fast and short.

In August of 1877, a blacksmith
named Frank Wendy Cahill picked the

wrong day to push the wrong kid.

Words turned to fists.

Fists turned to blood, and before
the dust settled, Wendy Cahill

laid dying on the saloon floor.

Billy claims self-defense.

The law called it murder.

They threw him in the guardhouse and
before the sentence could come down, he

was gone again, slipping into the desert,
like smoke on the wind, he fled east

through Apache country alone, starving
his horse stolen and his body failing.

Days later, a rancher named
Heis school Jones found him

half dead in the Pecos Valley.

The Jones family nursed the kid
back from the edge, gave him food,

shelter, and his second chance at life.

But the frontier had no
mercy for second chances.

When he rode again, he didn't
ride toward reputation.

He rode toward company.

Toward men who spoke his
language outlaws wrestlers and

restless souls chasing fortune.

One stone steer at a time.

They called themselves the boys, a
gang led by Jesse Evans, a thief with

charm and cruelty and equal measure.

Billy fell in with them and together
they rode the Pecos trails, lifting

cattle, drinking, gambling, and
drifting through the shadows of the law.

By late 1877, the gangs trail led
north into Lincoln County, a place

where the rich ruled like kings, and
the law was just another hired gun.

Billy rode into town as the kid,
another saddle in Jesse Evans crew.

Not yet famous, not yet feared.

Just another drifter in a land
that turned boys into bullets.

He couldn't have known it then,
but the road that brought him

into Lincoln would never let him
leave the docket before the court.

Tonight, the return of the kid,
the Outlaws road, back to New

Mexico and the first step toward
the war that would make his name

immortal Court, is now in session.

Hey Angela.

How's it going today, John?

It's good.

How are you?

I'm doing all right.

We got new toys to play with
here in the studio, and So

Angela: you play with the toys?

John: Yes.

See if we can get our audio quality
a little bit better and I don't

know, I can do all kinds of cool
shit with this, so I'm excited.

But it's taken, it's pretty
steep learning curve.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Angela: That's why you play
with the toys and I don't,

John: this is probably true.

Angela: Yeah.

That's a good, it's, yeah.

John: So, uh, you ready
for this new episode?

We're finally through introdu
introducing a whole bunch of freaking

people and onto just telling the
story now, so it's kind of exciting.

So wel welcome back listeners to
Dark Dialogue, galas and Gunfights,

the courtroom of the Old West
where every outlaw, lawman, and

legend takes the stand under.

Angela: If you've been riding with
us this far, you've seen the lines

between right and wrong blur until
they're nothing but dust in the horizon.

And tonight we follow
that dust trail east.

As Billy the kid rides out of
Arizona, back into New Mexico

and straight into the storm.

That would make him a legend.

John: He's no hero yet.

No myth, no ghost of the frontier.

He's just the kid.

Half outlaw, half survivor, riding
into Lincoln County with Jesse Evans

gang at his side, and no idea what kind
of empire he is about to walk into.

Angela: It's that turning point every
outlaw face when the choices stop being

about right or wrong and start being about
who lives long enough to tell the story.

John: And before we seal the
next case file, do us a favor.

If you're listening on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or YouTube, hit that follow

button and give us a thumbs up.

Angela: Leave a review, share the show
with someone who loves the real stories of

the Old West, not the Hollywood ones, and
help keep these trails of history alive.

John: Your support keeps the lights
burning in this courtroom of the past

and lets us keep putting the legends
of the West on the witness stand.

Angela: Courts in session again, and
the kids just ridden into Lincoln.

John: Before Billy, the kid ever took
up a gun in the name of justice, he

took a horse that wasn't his late 1877
Lincoln County, New Mexico territory.

The name on the arrest sheet
wasn't Billy the kid yet.

It was William h Bonnie or sometimes
Henry McCarty, depending on who was

asking and who he was running from.

He'd been working for Sheriff
William Brady earning his keep

mending fences in wrangling cattle.

But the sheriff's pay never stretched
far enough for a drifter with

restless, ands, and a gambler streak.

So like so many young men on
the frontier, Billy supplemented

his wages with side work.

Work that didn't come with a ledger
or a signature wrestling, livestock

trading horses cutting corners
where the law looked the other way.

One of those horses carried the
brand of John Henry Tunstall,

the English rancher and merchant
with new money and old enemies.

Ttell was trying to break the
monopoly of Murphy and Dolan the

house, and that made his stock as
valuable as it was dangerous to touch.

Billy either didn't know or didn't care.

It was Richard Dick Brewer,
Tunsell's foreman who found him.

Brewer was a quiet man, capable, loyal,
and not yet the captain of the regulators.

He'd one day become, he spotted
Billy with one of Tunstall stolen

horses, and did what duty required.

He made the arrest himself
for the first time.

The kids stood on the wrong side of
the bars in the Lincoln County Jail,

a small Adobe building with more rats
than guards and no comfort beyond

a patch of shade from the no sun.

The charge was theft, a hanging
offense if the court felt inclined

to make an example of him.

The Lincoln was a land where
justice depended on who signed

the order and who paid the fee.

And for all the law written on paper,
the real law was still written on

dust, blood, and cattle brands.

Billy's arrest was brief, but
its consequences lasted forever.

Behind those bars, he got his first close.

Look at the powers that
ruled Lincoln County.

The corrupt sheriff who paid his
wages, the foreign rancher whose

horses he'd stolen, and the foreman
who would soon let him into the

war that would make him famous.

The verdict of time, the
stolen horse didn't just mark

Billy's first crime in Lincoln.

It marked his first collusion with
the men who would shape his destiny.

Brady Tunstall Brewer, three names that
would soon carve the line between Lawman

outlaw and martyr and leave the kids
standing somewhere in between the boys sat

in a Lincoln County jail cell staring at
a future that looked a lot like the past.

Short, cold, and going nowhere outside.

The sun baked the street and the law
went about its business counting.

Cattle writing warrants selling
justice one favor at a time.

Then the door opened and the man who
stepped inside was not the sheriff,

and he wasn't the prosecutor,
and he wasn't there to hang him.

It was John Henry Kunal, the English
rancher, whose horse the kid had stolen.

Kunal had every right to press charges.

He could have made an example of the
thief, let the law do its work, and

prove that his brand carried the same
weight as Murphy and Dolans, but that

wasn't the man that Tunstall was.

He'd come west chasing something
noble than profit, an idea of fairness

in a place that had forgotten what
the word meant and what he saw in

that cell wasn't a hardened outlaw.

It was a wiry, sunburned
teenager with bright eyes and

a mind quicker than his hands.

Witnesses say Tunstall was
surprised, maybe even disarmed

by how polite the prisoner was.

Billy spoke well.

He read well and met
his gaze without fear.

Some said Tunstall even smiled when
the kid cracked a joke about the

irony of stealing from the only
honest rancher in Lincoln County.

Whatever the reason, mercy
won out over vengeance.

Tunstall dropped the charges.

Instead of letting the law chew the
boy up and spit him out, he offered

him a job, a legitimate one cowboy,
cattle guard, ranch hand work that

paid in dollars instead of debt.

For the first time in a long while,
someone treated Billy McCarty like a man.

Not a mistake, and that was all it took.

He rode out to the Tunstall Ranch, a
place that promised something close

to decency there under the open sky.

He worked alongside men who had
one day become legends themselves.

Dick Brewer, Charlie
Bowry and Doc Scurlock.

The kid found something
rarer than freedom.

He found respect.

It was a small decision, one
man's choice to forgive instead of

punish, but it changed everything.

Sal's Mercy gave the outlaw home a
name and a cause, and in return, it

gave history the bond that would light
the fuse for the Lincoln County War.

The verdict of time when John Tto opened
that cell door, he wasn't just freeing

a prisoner, he was recruiting a soldier.

And Billy the kid would repay that act
of mercy with loyalty that lasted beyond

life, beyond legend and beyond the grave.

When John Tunstall hired Billy the Kid
in late 1877, it marked a turning point.

Maybe the first real one in the
young drifter short, uncertain life.

Tunsell's Ranch stood as one of
the few outposts in Lincoln County,

not under the shadow of the House,
Murphy and Dolan's monopoly that

controlled land, law and livelihood.

The Englishman spread ran with
structure, fairness, and a code

that valued loyalty over lineage
to the men working those fields.

It wasn't just a ranch, it was a refuge.

Constable didn't just give Billy work,
he gave him something rarer trust.

He outfitted him with a horse, a
saddle, and a brand new Winchester

73 rifle on the frontier.

Those weren't gifts.

They were declarations for a teenager
with no family and few allies, they

were the first real sign that someone
saw more in him than just trouble.

Billy worked as a cowboy and a
cattle guard protecting constable's

herds from the wrestlers and the
rival factions who proud the hills.

Every day was long and uncertain.

Riding fence lines, moving stock,
keeping watch for thieves or

deputies who serve Murphy and Dolan's
interest instead of the law out here.

Justice came on horseback and it wore
whichever badge had been bought that week.

But on Tonsils Ranch, Billy
found something that resembled

home the crew around him.

Men like Charlie Bowry and Richard
Dick Brewer became more than coworkers.

They became a kind of family
found by the decency of the man

who led them, and united by their
quiet defiance of the house.

Tung still treated Billy with respect
and dignity, two currencies that carried

more value than gold in Lincoln County.

Billy would later say that Ttell was
the only man who ever treated him.

Quote, like I was a free
born and white end quote.

Crude words from the time, but they
revealed a deeper truth, the kid's

loneliness, the prejudice he'd
endured, and how profoundly that

simple respect cut through years
of being dismissed as a nobody.

In those months, Billy began calling
himself William h Bonnie, full-time,

shedding the names Henry McCarty
and Kid Antrim, like worn out skins.

He wasn't hiding anymore.

He was reinventing, working for Tunstall,
gave him what the frontier had always

denied him belonging, purpose, and
a cause that felt worth defending.

There were no gunfights yet, no
ambushes, no headlines, just a fragile

piece stretched thin between rival
empires, Murphy and Dolan's House

on one side, and Tunsell's defiant
idealism on the other, but anyone

with sense could feel it in the air.

The storm was coming and when it broke.

The boy from nowhere.

The ranch hand with the Winchester rifle
would be right in the middle of it.

The verdict of time before the
legend, before the blood, there

was a ranch in Lincoln County where
a young outlaw found his purpose.

And in the months before the
war, Billy Bonnie learned the one

lesson he'd carried to his grave.

Loyalty isn't bought, it's earned.

When Billy, the kid, worked the Tunstall
Ranch near the Rio Felix, through the

winter of 1877 into the early months of
1878, the ground beneath Lincoln County

began to shake quietly at first, then
harder with every passing week on paper.

It was a legal dispute.

In truth, it was the opening act of a war.

The spark came from the estate of Emil
Fritz, the dead partner of the house,

the Murphy Dolan empire that had run
Lincoln County like a private kingdom.

Alexander McSwain, John Tunsell's Ally
and attorney had been named executor

of Fritz's sizable insurance policy.

When McSwain refused to hand the
funds over to Murphy and Dolan,

James Dolan went to court and won a
writ that would change everything.

Sheriff William Brady loyal to the
house, was ordered to collect the

so-called debt the writ, gave him
the authority to seize over $40,000

in livestock and assets, constables,
cattle, horses, wagons, even supplies.

It was a weapon disguised
as law out on the ranch.

The men could feel it in the air.

Every rioter on the horizon might
have been one of Brady's deputies or

one of the hired guns who wore the
badge by day and the house's colors.

By night, Billy Bonnie
was there through it all.

He might not have been in the
courthouse, but he didn't have to be.

He could see the anxiety on every face
here, the whispers around the fire.

When someone spotted dust on the horizon,
the Tunstall outfit stayed armed,

alert and ready letters and supplies
from town came late or not at all.

What had been long days of ranch work
turned into nights of sleepless watch.

Tunstall refused to surrender.

If Sheriff Brady wanted his
stock, he'd have to find it first.

The Englishman began moving his most
valuable herds to safer ground, and for

one critical job, he turned to the kid.

Billy was ordered to relocate nine
prime horses, slipping them past

deputies and wrestlers who proud the
open range, looking for easy seizures.

It wasn't a gunfight, but it was
a mission of trust and danger.

For Billy, it meant something.

A man like Tunstall wouldn't hand a
teenager, a Winchester, a good horse,

and that kind of responsibility
unless he believed in him.

At the ranch, Dick Brewer, Charlie
Bowry and the others tightened

their circle around Tunstall.

They saw what the house was
doing using the sheriff's badge

as a brand of intimidation, and
they were done hiding from it.

What started is legal paperwork had turned
into armed standoffs waiting to happen.

Billy, the kid was watching it
all, taking mental notes the

way some men keep prayer books.

He was learning how power worked
in Lincoln County, that the

law was just another gun if you
could afford the ammunition.

And in those tense, sleepless
weeks before the first bullet

was fired, the kid's loyalty
hardened into something like faith.

The verdict of time before the shooting
began, the war was already being fought in

courtrooms, ledgers, and livestock pens.

Billy Bonnie rode through it all,
discovering that justice in Lincoln

County didn't come from judges or juries.

It came from whichever side had
the courage to stand its ground.

February 18th, 1878, the day
the Lincoln County War began.

Not with a battle, but with a
betrayal dressed up as the law.

That morning, John Tunstall rode
out from his ranch near the Rio

Felix, leading a small party of men.

With him were Billy, the kid
Richard, Dick Brewer, Robert Windman,

John Middleton and Henry Brown.

Five riders protecting nine
horses bound for Lincoln.

The order was clear, move the stock, keep
it safe, and stay ahead of the house.

Dunst, still's, cattle and
horses have become targets

in a so-called debt seizure.

A legal WR signed by Sheriff William
Brady, who served Murphy and Dolan's

interest like scripture for Brady's Posse.

This wasn't law enforcement,
it was collection work.

As the party rode north, a cloud
of dust rose on the horizon.

Brady's posse, Jesse Evans,
William Morton, Tom Hill, and

several others was closing fast.

Every man in that group carried a
badge, a rifle, and a reputation

for working both sides of the law.

When the two groups cut side
of one another tonsils, men

reacted the only way they could.

Billy Brewer and the other spurred their
horses and scattered seeking cover in

the rolling terrain, hearts pounding,
rain, snapping through the cold.

February Air, Billy took refuge in
the brush watching from a distance.

As the Sheriff's posse rode down on his
employer, John Tunstall stayed behind.

He wasn't armed for a fight.

He tried to reason with them,
raised his hands, spoke calmly.

He believed the law could still
be reasoned with he was wrong.

Witnesses later say he lifted his arms
to show that he carried no weapon.

Moments later, Jesse Evans, William
Morton, and Tom Hill closed in.

Tunstall was shot through
the head at close range.

When his body hit the ground, his
horse went down beside him, both left

in the dust as proof that the job
was done from their hiding places.

Billy the kid and the other
saw the aftermath, the lifeless

shape of the man who had treated
them with fairness and dignity.

The man who had given them purpose and
the laman who had rode away without

consequence, they rode back to the ranch.

In shock.

By nightfall, word of the
killing had reached Lincoln.

It was no longer about cattle
or debt or rival stores.

It was about justice
by badge or by bullet.

That gunfire on the open range
didn't just end a man's life.

It ended the piece of a county
in the days that followed.

Billy Bonnie and the others who worked
for Tunstall Brewer, Bowry, Scurlock

Middleton, they all swore an oath.

They would form a new posse, one
bound, not by pay, but by loyalty.

They called themselves the regulators.

The verdict of time, the killing
of John Tunsell was murder.

Carried out under color of law.

It turned ranch hands into gunman,
friends into Avengers, and Billy,

the kid from a drifting cowboy into
a name history would never forget.

So not quite the way it
went down in young guns.

Not quite, not quite, I mean, as
cold-blooded for sure as it was portrayed,

but a little bit different story.

Angela: Tiny.

John: So the killing of John Henry, Henry
Tunstall wasn't quick and it wasn't clean.

He was struck first in the chest, knocking
him from his horse, and then finished

with a bullet to the back of his head.

The men who did it, Jesse Evans,
William Morton and Tom Hill wore

badges that day, but not honor.

They staged the scene
to look like a fight.

Tunsell's hat and coat
were arranged nearby.

His position twisted to suggest that he'd
resisted arrest, but everyone who saw

it later, Billy Dick, John Middleton,
Henry Brown, Robert Windman, Fred

Waite, they all swore to the same truth.

Constable was unarmed and
he never drew a weapon.

The gunfires scattered his men across
the hills, but not far enough to miss

what came next from their hiding places.

They watch their employer fall, watch the
law right away, like thieves in daylight.

When the sound of hooves faded,
they returned to the body.

The air was heavy silent except for the
restless shuffle of the dead man's horse.

They lifted tons tunsell's body onto
the back of a burrow and began the

long 20 mile ride back towards Lincoln.

They buried him at the ranch under
a clear sky that did nothing to

soften the anger in their hearts.

For Billy, the loss was personal.

He later said that Tal was the only man
who had ever treated him with dignity.

That respect had been rare in Lincoln
County, and its loss hit harder

than any bullet at the graveside.

Billy Bonnie swore revenge.

Those who were there, said that he spoke
the words out loud over the fresh earth.

His voice steady and cold.

In that moment, the war stopped
being about cattle and contracts,

and it became personal.

By Dawn, Dick, brewer, and Billy,
the kid ran Lincoln standing before

Justice of the Peace, John B.

Wilson, one of the few officials
not owned by the house.

They gave sworn affidavits describing
the murder and naming the killers.

Sheriff, William Brady, Jesse Evans,
William Morton, and Tom Hill Wilson

agreed and he signed murder, murder
warrants, turning the machinery of

law against the men who perverted it.

Then he made a decision that would
change the face of Lincoln County.

He deputized Tunsell's own men.

Dick Brewer became special Constable
and Billy, along with Fred, wait,

John Middleton and the others were
sworn in as special deputies charged

with arresting constable's killers.

It was the birth of a
new force in Lincoln.

The newspapers would
later call them outlaws.

They called themselves something else.

The regulators.

Within 48 hours, cowboys
had become lawmen.

And in Lincoln County, the line between
justice and vengeance vanished entirely.

The verdict of time, constable's
murder turned grief into purpose and

the law into a weapon of defiance.

Billy Ivanni once a drifting hand,
now carried both a badge and a

rifle, and for the first time, he
pointed both in the same direction.

The regulators were born, not
out of rebellion, but out of

betrayal, and the war that followed
would make their names immortal.

Two days after John Tunsell's murder, the
fragile balance of law in Lincoln County

finally broke what had started his legal
procedure now twisted into open defiance.

Each side carried its own warrants,
its own vision of justice, and

both were willing to kill for it.

On February 20th, 1878, Billy, the
kid wrote into the town of Lincoln

with a lawful purpose under his new
authority as a deputy constable for

Justice of the Peace, John V. Wilson,
he was there to serve murder warrants

against Sheriff William Brady, Jesse
Evans, and the others accused of killing

Constable with Erode Fred Wait and
Constable Martinez Reman armed, not just

with rifles, but with the law itself.

They found Brady and his allies
gathered at Dolan's store the

very heart of the house's empire.

Billy stepped forward warrant in hand
doing what lawmen were supposed to do,

but in Lincoln County, the law belonged
to whoever had the most guns behind it.

Brady refused the papers outright.

He rejected Wilson's authority, sneered
at the warrants, and decided to show

the kid what real power looked like.

The sheriff turned the tables
arresting Billy the kid, Fred Waite

and Constable Martinez on the spot.

They confiscated every weapon they
carried, including that Winchester

73 rifle that Tunstall had given
Billy only weeks before to the kid.

The gun wasn't just a tool, it
was a symbol of trust losing.

It was like losing
Tunstall all over again.

Martinez was released almost immediately,
a token gesture to keep up appearances,

but Billy weight weren't so lucky.

They were thrown into jail,
left to stew in the dark.

Billy's captivity didn't last.

Deputy US Marshall, Robert Windman, a
friend and ally of the anti house faction,

arrived in Lincoln with military backing,
backed by a detachment of soldiers.

Windman confronted Brady's
men arrested the jail guards

and set the prisoners free.

The regulators wrote out again,
unbroken and angrier than ever.

In that moment, the fight for justice
stopped pretending to be legal.

Two governments now existed in Lincoln
County, one run by the house and the

other by the men who refused to bow
to it, and both claim the same badge.

The verdict of time by arresting Billy
Bonnie and then losing him to his allies.

Sheriff Brady proved what
everyone already knew.

Lincoln County had no law left to enforce.

When the jail doors opened, the
regulators didn't just walk free.

They crossed the line from lawful
deputies to soldiers in a private war.

The ink on the regulator's
badges was barely dry before the

territory stepped in to erase them.

News of Tunsell's murder, the
regulator's formation and the murder

warrants against Sheriff William
Brady Spread fast, too fast for Santa

Fe to ignore what began as a county
dispute now looked like rebellion.

In February of 1878, New Mexico
territorial Governor Samuel Beach,

ax Tale decided to act to outsiders.

It was about restoring order, but anyone
in Lincoln County could see the truth.

Axel's hand rested squarely
on the side of the house.

Murphy and Dolan weren't just
merchants, they were political power.

They supplied the forts, fed the soldiers,
and lined the pockets of men in Santa Fe.

When Axel heard that a small town
justice in a band of ranch hands had

taken upon themselves to challenge
that machine, he didn't see justice.

He saw insubordination.

Axel moved quickly.

He revoked the commission of
Justice of the Peace, John B.

Wilson, the very man who had
deputized dick, brewer, Billy the

kid, and the rest of tonsils men,
and with a single stroke of the pen.

Every warrant that Wilson had
issued, every badge that he'd

handed out, vanished into smoke.

Overnight.

The regulators went from lawful officers
to outlaws Their badges meant nothing.

Their authority was gone.

What had been a mission for justice
was now branded vigilantism.

Governor Axel's decision
didn't stop the violence.

It gave it new fuel.

From that day forward, every bullet
fired by the regulators could be

labeled a crime, and every man they
hunted could claim self-defense.

The deck was stacked.

The law reloaded and Lincoln County
was set to burn the verdict of time.

When Governor Axtel stripped the
regulators of their authority, he

didn't bring peace to the territory.

He guaranteed war by choosing
power over principle.

He turned justice into treason
and made fugitives of the very

men who had once worn the badge.

Early March of 1878, the
Lincoln County War had no more

illusions of peace left to lose.

The regulators were stripped of
their badges branded outlaws by

the governor himself, yet still
determined to carry out the justice

that the law refused to deliver.

On March 6th, 1878, the posse led
by Dick Brewer rode South into the

rugged country near the Rio Penasco.

With him were Billy the kid,
red Weight, and several others.

Men who had once been ranch hands
now wearing the weight of deputies

turned renegades their query.

William Buck Morton and Frank Baker,
both named in affidavits as participants

in the killing of John Tunstall.

For weeks, the two fugitives had alluded
capture moving through the arroyos in the

ranch land under the protection of allies
loyal to the house, but the regulators had

something more powerful than protection.

They had purpose.

When brewer's men finally caught sight
of Morton and Baker near the Penasco,

there was no dramatic gunfight, no
last stand, outnumbered, tired, and

facing men who had sworn vengeance.

The fugitives did something
few expected they surrendered.

Morton, perhaps sensing a glimmer of
hope, agreed to lay down his arms on one

condition that he and Bakker be returned
alive to Lincoln to stand before a judge.

Instead of a firing line, brewer
and the regulators still clinging to

the last fragments of legality that
they once held, gave their word.

They swore that both men would see a
fair trial with their prisoners secured.

The regulators began the
long ride back north.

It was more than a routine escort.

It was a statement for the first
time since Tunsell's death.

His killers were in custody, and
the men who had buried him now

held his justice in their hands.

But on those lonely trails between
the Penasco and Lincoln, the

air grew heavier by the mile.

No one spoke much.

Every man knew the score.

There were no, no courts left to trust,
no law left to appeal to, and too many

guns waiting on both sides of the horizon.

The verdict of time on the road
from the Rio Penasco, the regulators

carried two prisoners and the last
remnants of their promise to the law.

But out here, promises had a short
life, and by the time they reached

Lincoln, two more men would be dead,
and the line between justice and

vengeance would be gone for good.

For four long days after the capture
on the Rio Penasco, the regulators

rode North six men escorting two
prisoners across some of the loneliest

land in New Mexico territory.

The sun burned all day.

The wind cut by night, and no one spoke
more than they had to their prisoners,

William Buck Morton and Frank Baker, two
of the men accused of killing Tunstall,

their captors, Dick Brewer, Billy the
kid, Fred Waite, Charlie Bowry, John

Middleton, and a handful of others.

Every man in the saddle knew
why they were really there.

They called it an arrest, but under
the dust and the silence, it felt

more like a funeral procession
waiting for the service to begin.

Morton had surrendered only after
brewers swore on his word that they'd

be taken a life to Lincoln, but promises
weighed light in Lincoln County.

According to later recollections,
Morton told more than one

traveler along the trail that he
doubted he'd ever see town again.

He even managed to send out a letter
written under guard, claiming he

and Baker were being treated harshly
and that he expected to be killed

despite the regulator's oath.

No copy of that letter survives, but the
story of it does whispered in courtrooms

and campfires for years afterward
within the group, the tension was thick

enough to taste men like George Coe.

Later recalled arguments, sharp words
traded between Brewer and some of his

deputies, maybe even Billy himself,
about what to do with the prisoners.

Nobody recorded the details, but the
silence of those rides says Enough.

The regulators were torn between justice
and revenge, and the line between

the two got thinner with every mile.

Morton kept talking, kept watching
their eyes when they stopped for water.

Baker Road, quiet beside him,
listening Four days on the trail,

four days under armed guard.

Four days of promises no one believed.

The longer they rode, the clearer
it became that this wasn't a march

toward trial, it was a countdown,
the verdict of time on the road

between the Penasco and Lincoln.

The war was still pretending
to be lawful, but every hoof

beat was erasing that illusion.

By the time the sun set on the fourth day.

Two men were still breathing who
shouldn't have trusted the law.

And a posse sworn to uphold it was about
to decide what justice really meant.

By the morning of March 9th, 1878, the
ride was over four days out of the sco,

the regulators reached a narrow stretch
of country near Blackwater Creek.

The prisoners, William Buck, Morton and
Frank Baker were still alive, still under

guard, and still clinging to the promise
that they'd be taken safely to Lincoln.

But in Lincoln County, promises
didn't live long, and what happened

next depends on who you ask.

According to the regulators
themselves, Morton and Baker made

a break for it, an escaped attempt
in rough country, somewhere near

the banks of the Blackwater.

Dick Brewer acting as leader, claimed
that he and his men open fire only

after the prisoners bolted, leaving
them with no choice but to shoot.

When the smoke cleared Morton Baker, and
a regulator named McCloskey were all dead.

That's the official story.

It appeared in statements in
tavern talk and in letters sent

to justify the killings afterward.

But even in 1878, you believed it.

The other version, the one whispered in
Lincoln Streets, pulled a darker tail.

Morton and Baker, they said, never ran.

They were executed, shot down in
cold blood by men who'd lost faith

in law and patience with justice.

It was also claimed that McClowsky
was colluding with them to escape

evidence from those who found.

The body spoke louder than any affidavit.

Each man had been shot multiple times.

The wounds in the back of the head,
the kind that don't come from running,

gunfights, their corpses lay side by
side with McClowsky nearby the air around

them smelled not a fear but of revenge.

Morton Edward predicted it days earlier.

He told the on the trail and even
written it in a letter that he'd

never reached Lincoln alive, that
he didn't trust the regulator's

word and history proved him right.

The truth of what happened to Blackwater
Creek will never be proven in a courtroom.

But even regulator George Coe
years later admitted that tempers

were high, words were sharp, and
the balance between justice and

vengeance was hanging by a thread.

The killing of McCloskey
only deepened the mystery.

Some claimed that he tried
to help the prisoners escape.

Others said that he'd been marked as a
traitor or simply caught in the crossfire

of rage and paranoia that had been
building for miles the verdict of time,

whether it was an escape or an execution.

The result was the same.

Three men dead and the last trace of
legality gone from the regulator's.

Cause the Blackwater killings
turned a feud into open war.

From that moment on Lincoln County
would be ruled, not by courts or

warrants, but by lead and loyalty.

So again, a little bit different
than it played out in young guns.

I think they, they had to kinda
speed things up a little bit, so

they just caught 'em and killed them.

But it had to suck for those guys being,
you know, riding, knowing they're not

taking you back to Lincoln, how could they
possibly take 'em back to Lincoln where

the sheriff was a total pile of shit.

Yeah.

So they knew.

It just is surprising.

It took four days for him to do the deed.

Angela: Yeah,

John: the same day bullets found
William Buck Morton and Frank

Baker on the road to Lincoln.

Fate dealt its own hand, 80 miles
Southwest, near the settlement of

Tularosa, where two more of John Tunsell's
killers would meet their reckoning,

not from the regulator's guns, but
from the very life they chose to live.

Tom Hill, one of the men who had
ridden with Jesse Evans and fired the

shots that killed Tunstall was back
to what he knew best robbery Hill.

And Evans still flying.

The Murphy Dolan banner tried to hold
up a group of locals near Tularosa,

but this time the locals shot back.

When the smoke cleared, Palm
Hill was dead where he fell.

The outlaw, who once carried
out the house's dirty work

now lay face down in the dust.

His final crime undone
by his own arrogance.

Jesse Evans, the hard eyed
leader of the gang that bore his

name, didn't fare much better.

He caught lead during the same
gunfight, badly wounded, bleeding,

and suddenly mortal in a way
that he'd never been before.

Lawman from the area,
arrested him where he lay.

The same man who had terrorized
Lincoln County for years now found

himself in a jail cell, two weak
to run, and two wounded to fight.

It was a strange symmetry.

On March 9th, 1878, while the
regulators killed Morton and Bak near

Blackwater Creek, the house's hired
guns were falling apart into LaRosa.

Within a few hours, three of
the men responsible for tonsils

murder were dead or captured.

The Evans gang.

Once the muscle behind the house's
iron rule was shattered, hill was gone.

Evans was wounded and under arrest,
and the chain of command inside the

Murphy Dolan faction was broken.

It didn't bring peace, not by a long
shot, but it shifted the balance.

The regulators might have lost their
badges, but for the first time since

the war began, they weren't the only
ones bleeding the verdict of time.

The death of Tom Hill in the fall
of Jesse Evans didn't end the war.

It only changed its temperature.

For the first time, the house felt
the weight of its own violence, and

in Lincoln County, retribution was
starting to look a lot like justice.

So on the morning of April 1st,
1878, it's amazing just how

fast all this shit's happening.

It's like boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Yeah.

So the morning of April 1st, 1878
began like any other in the town of

Lincoln, New Mexico, a long strip of
dust in Adobe where the law was decided

by whoever could draw the fastest.

But under that quiet something mean was
building Sheriff William Brady, the man

who wore the house's star, walked his
usual route down Main Street with him were

deputies George Henman and Billy Matthews.

Both loyal, both armed, both veterans
of too many skirmishes to count.

They were out to serve papers, watch
for regulators, and remind Lincoln

who still held authority to them.

It was another morning of order
in a county spinning apart.

Across the street unseen, behind
constable's, old store, six men waited.

They weren't lawmen anymore.

Not officially, but they still carried
the badges inside them like ghosts.

Billy the kid, Jim French,
Frank McNabb, John Middleton,

Henry Newton, brown, Fred, wait.

The regulators, constable's writers
turned Avengers crouched in silence

behind Adobe walls and rough cut fences.

Their rifles leveled at the very man
they blamed for their employer's murder.

The Carell gave them perfect cover, an
elevated view of the street shadows,

deep enough to hide six men in a cause.

They had been there since dawn,
waiting, breathing, the same dry

air that always hung before a
gunfight from their positions.

They could see every doorway, every
hitching post, every step that Brady took.

The objective was clear and simple.

Kill Sheriff Brady.

Not out of blood lust, but
out of something colder.

Retribution Brady had stood at the
center of Tunsell's murder, had arrested.

Billy and the others under false
authority had mocked every notion

of fairness that Lincoln had left.

Now, the regulator's meant
to end it out on the street.

Brady and his men had no reason
to expect what waited for them.

They moved along the same route as always
past the Murphy and Dolan stores, the

courthouse and down the street lined with
merchants who watched from behind their

windows pretending to sweep or tend stock.

Lincoln wasn't a town that missed much.

Everyone knew something was
coming, they just didn't know when.

Inside the corral, Billy watched
from the shadows one finger resting

on the trigger of a Winchester.

He could see Brady's badge flash in
the morning sun, a glint that must have

looked almost holy to a man about to die.

All around him.

The others waited.

Rifle steady hearts pacing
like the ticking of a clock.

The street was empty except for the
lawmen walking into the center of town.

The town folk had vanished indoors,
drawn by instinct or by fear.

Even the horses were restless shifting
against their tethers, hooves,

scraping nervously against the stone.

Lincoln held its breath.

The regulators held their fire, and
for one suspended moment in time,

the war weighted balance between
justice and the pull of a trigger.

Quiet along.

Lincoln's main street was thin as glass,
ready to shatter at the touch of a trigger

behind the Adobe wall of Tunsell's Corral.

The six men waited.

Each one held his place in the dust,
in the shadow rifles resting across the

wall's edge, eyes fixed on the figures.

Moving below down on the street.

Sheriff William Brady and his deputies,
Hinman and Matthews and others,

walked their usual patrol route
passing in front of Dolan's store.

To them, it was just another
morning under the same hard sky.

They didn't know the men they'd hunted
were watching from 20 yards away,

waiting for them to step into the open.

Then the first shot came.

Brady went down first hit multiple
times before he could even draw.

He fell hard into the dirt.

His badge flashing once in the sunlight
before vanishing beneath it beside him.

Deputy George w Hinman staggered
hit in the chest in the throat,

collapsing only feet away.

The air filled with gun smoke and the
sharp echo of rifles off Adobe walls.

The ambush was over in seconds,
but the sound hung in Lincoln,

like thunder that wouldn't fade.

Brady and Hinman laid dead in
the street and the rest of the

sheriff's men scrambled for cover
firing wildly towards the corral.

But the regulators were ghosts behind the
wall, unseen, unflinching, and silent.

Once their work was done.

It wasn't random, it wasn't rage, it was
retribution, broad daylight vengeance.

For John Tunstall, the man who had treated
Billy Bonny, like more than an outlaw.

A message written in gunfire declaring
that the house no longer owned

Lincoln County and that the regulators
would answer murder with murder.

When the shooting stopped, Lincoln
fell silent, just the his of wind.

Through bullet holes in the soft
scrape of boots retreating into

doorways, sheriff William Brady and
Deputy Henman laid dead in the dirt.

Their badges half buried by the same dust
they'd ruled over, but the fight wasn't

finished from behind the Tunstall Corral,
Billy the Kid and Jim French broke cover.

It was a desperate sprint into
open daylight, two men running

straight into the same line of
fire that they just unleashed.

They weren't chasing glory.

They were after something
that mattered far more.

Lying beside Brady's body was
John Tunsell's Winchester rifle.

The weapon Brady had confiscated
weeks earlier when he'd

arrested Billy and Lincoln.

To Billy.

That rifle wasn't just
a gun, it was a symbol.

His connection to the man who had
treated him as more than an outlaw,

but there was more on Brady's
body than steel and walnut stock.

The sheriff carried papers, arrest
warrants, legal orders, and Ritz

of seizure documents that named the
regulators themselves as fugitives.

Billy and French reached the fallen
sheriff, grabbing the rifle and trying

to snatch the documents from his coat
before they could make it back to cover.

Deputy Billy Matthews took aim from
across the street and fired the

bullet, tore through the air and
grazed both men slicing through

flesh at the thigh and the leg.

Billy staggered French
stumbled but neither fell.

They dragged the rifle and papers
back behind the corral wall as

bullets splitter adobe around them.

Their wounds were light, but the
meaning of what they'd done was heavy.

That morning in Lincoln, they
hadn't just killed a sheriff.

They'd reclaimed the last pieces
of their fallen employer and

stripped the house of its law.

In one stroke, the Winchester
was vengeance made tangible.

The papers were survival, and together
they told the truth of the war,

that now own Lincoln County, there
were no lawmen left only sides.

The verdict of time, the
ambush on Sheriff William Brady

marked the point of no return.

By recovering the rifle in the warrants,
Billy the kid and the regulators

symbolically took the law into their
own hands, literally and permanently.

From that day on, they weren't
deputies, cowboys, or Avengers.

They were outlaws men bound, not by
oath or badge, but by blood loyalty.

And the memory of John Henry Tunstall.

Four days after the killing of Sheriff
Brady, the regulators rode south toward

the Sacramento Mountains following a name
that had found its way into their list.

Andrew l Buckshot Roberts
to the regulators.

Roberts was another man in the house's
pocket, an associate of Jesse Evans,

a sometime rancher and trader who had
done business with Murphy and Dolan.

But Roberts wasn't a lawman
and he wasn't a hired gun.

He was a frontier drifter, an ex Texas
ranger, a man who'd fought Indians

bandits, and worse, his only crime,
at least on paper, was bad company.

The regulators, at least a dozen strong.

Found him at Blazer's Mill, a small
sawmill in settlement in the Rio

Tularosa, owned by Dr. Joseph Blazer.

The group included Billy the kid,
Charlie Bowdry, John Middleton, Fred,

wait, and their leader, Dick Brewer.

They came with rifles ready
and justice on their tongues.

Brewer called out to Roberts
demanding his surrender.

Roberts refused.

He had no reason to trust a posse that
carried his justice in gun barrels.

Instead, he grabbed his Winchester
rifle, took cover near the carpenter

shop, and braced himself for the
fight that he knew was coming.

The gunfight that followed was pure chaos,
close quarters, splintered boards and

powder smoke thick enough to choke a man.

Roberts firing from behind.

Timber piles and doorframes.

Shot Charlie Bowdry through the chest.

Bowdry fell coughing blood,
but somehow stayed alive.

Moments later, John Middleton caught
a round two, another man down.

Another shock in a fight that
wasn't supposed to be this hard.

Roberts fought like he had a whole
damn army behind him, wounded

bleeding, but still steady.

He fired with deadly precision when Dick
Brewer tried to flank him, slipping behind

a stack of logs to get a clear shot.

Roberts saw the movement turned
and fired one clean round.

The bullet hit Brewer Square in the eye.

He died instantly falling without a sound.

Even his blood pooled around him.

Buckshot Roberts refused to quit.

He'd taken multiple hits by the time
the shooting stopped, but he had killed.

Brewer, wounded several others and
fought a dozen men to a standstill.

By sundown Roberts was dying,
they found him slumped inside

one of the mill buildings.

His rifle still warm.

He died that evening.

Taking his pride and his pain
with him for the regulators.

The battle at Blazer's Mill
was an absolute disaster.

Their best leader, Dick Brewer, was dead.

Their ranks were bloodied,
their morale shaken.

The gunfire proved that not every
enemy would fall easily, and that

sometimes vengeance came with a
cost that they hadn't counted on.

And for Buckshot Roberts, it was a
last stand written in fire and grit.

A man who hadn't chosen this
war but refused to die on

anyone's terms but his own.

By the time the gun smoke cleared
at Blazer's Mill, the regulator's

victory had turned hollow.

Dick Brewer, their leader, and the
one man who had tried to keep their

vengeance tethered to some kind of
order, was gone, killed by a man

who'd never meant to be their enemy.

Andrew l Buckshot.

Robbers hadn't ridden in the
Lincoln County War to take sides.

He wasn't a hired gun and he wasn't
one of the house's assassins.

He was a rancher and former Texas
Ranger, a man who'd seen too many fights

already and was trying to sell his
holdings and leave New Mexico behind.

But war doesn't ask for consent.

The regulators had marked him as
a name connected to the house,

and that was enough when they
surrounded him at the mill.

Roberts did not surrender.

He couldn't afford to.

He fought not for politics or power,
but because he knew what happened

to men who trusted armed strangers
promising justice, he defended

himself the only way that he knew how.

With precision, with courage, and with
the kind of fatal resolve that came

from experience in the end, he took
Dick Brewer's life wounded boundary

in Middleton and held off a dozen
armed men until his own body gave out.

He died that night alone, but
unbeaten the verdict of time.

Buckshot Roberts did not deserve to die.

He wasn't a murderer and he wasn't part of
the machine that had killed John Tunstall.

He was simply a man caught in
the middle of someone else's war.

Brandon, an enemy by association.

His death at Blazer's Mill showed how
far the fight had fallen from its cause,

how vengeance had outgrown justice, and
how good men could be lost for nothing

more than proximity to the wrong name.

For the regulators, the price was steep.

They lost their leader, their
discipline, and a piece of the

moral ground they'd once stood on.

From that day forward,
there was no illusion left.

The war wasn't about
right and wrong anymore.

It was about survival, and the
trail ahead would only grow darker.

So again, little bit
different than the movie.

I don't know why they decided to
portray this guy as like a bounty

hunter that came in after him, but
that was definitely not the case.

Angela: Cinema.

John: Cinema.

Yep.

But I mean, what more cinematic
of a story do you want than that?

They just picked on this poor freaking
guy that was trying to sell out and

leave and he kicked the shit out of him.

Yeah, that's pretty freaking cinematic.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Anyway, when the gun,

Angela: like the movie

John: I'm, yeah, I, they should
have got me to write the damn movie.

When the gunfire faded at Blazer's
Mill, only two men laid dead, Dick

Brewer and Buckshot Roberts, but the
echoes of that fight would outlast them.

Both the regulators stood in shock among
the SP shells and the splintered timber.

Their leader, the one man
who kept vengeance from

collapsing into chaos, was gone.

Killed by a man who hadn't
even been their enemy.

In truth, Charlie Bowry and John Middleton
bled from their wounds, leaning against

walls, still scarred by rifle fire, red
weight, and the others gathered Brewer's

body in silence, two drained for words.

They buried him near the mill on a
small moll overlooking the Rio Tularosa.

No ceremony, no gun salute, just
a rough wooden cross bearing his

name and a few words whispered by
men who had run out of prayers.

They didn't dare linger.

The war was spreading and the
hunters were already coming.

The regulators were wanted now for the
deaths of Sheriff Brady, deputy Hinman and

Buckshot Roberts, and even for the murders
that they hadn't yet committed, brew's

death broke something inside the group.

He had been the steady hand, the Lowman's
conscience inside of Band of Outlaws.

Without him command splintered the
regulators scattered into smaller

units, retreating southwest into the
scrublands, to avoid the soldiers

and the posses riding in their wake.

And in that vacuum, one name
began to rise above the rest.

Billy the kid, he wasn't the oldest
or the wisest, but he was the boldest,

fearless when the others hesitated,
reckless, when others paused in

the space, brewer left behind.

Billy filled the silence with
gunfire and defiance for the

people living around Blazer's.

Mill, the fight left its mark and
they had watched the war crawl out of

Lincoln and into their valley, and they
understood now that it could touch anyone.

Buckshot Roberts, a man trying to sell
his land and walk away from the feud had

died for nothing more than proximity.

To the settlers of the Tularosa.

It was proof that this war no
longer had sides, just victims.

The death of Dick Brewer became a kind of
frontier monument, a wooden cross standing

for every man who thought justice could
survive in a land ruled by gun smoke.

His grave marked the point where vengeance
stopped pretending to be righteousness.

And where the Lincoln County War
became what it had always threatened

to be a blood feud without an exit.

After Dick Brewer fell at Blazer's
Mill, the regulators were left

leading, leaderless and hunted.

They had buried their captain on
a lonely rise by the river, and

with him went the last piece of
restraint that they still possessed.

Out of that quiet came Frank
McNabb, a ranch foreman, lawman,

and one of the few older hands
left alive from Tunsell's crew.

He wasn't loud.

He wasn't reckless, not yet, but
he carried a calm that men could

follow in a war of hot tempers.

McNabb was the first to
think before drawing.

Still leadership didn't
come through ceremony.

There were no votes, no speeches, just a
slow knot of agreement around the fire.

McNabb took command
because somebody had to.

The regulators were fractured,
half wounded, half demoralized,

and all wanted men.

Someone needed to point
them back toward purpose.

Under McNabb, they tried to hold to
their official mission, fined and

punished the killers of John Tunstall.

But the shape of that mission had changed.

The badges were gone, the courts were
corrupt, and every move they made

now drew the blood of new enemies.

What had begun as a search for justice
was now a campaign for survival.

McNabb rode hard and often driving
the regulators through skirmishes

and raids small battles that
didn't even make the papers, but

left their marks on both sides.

He led them at the Fritz Ranch
where ambushes and betrayals

became daily hazards, and the line
between hunter and hunted vanished.

Every ride grew riskier,
every return thinner.

Frank McNabb's leadership lasted
only weeks, but in the short

time, the war changed again.

Brewer had fought to keep their vengeance.

Legal McNabb fought to keep them alive,
and in that shift from order to open

vendetta, the Lincoln County War hardened
into the conflict history, remembers a

storm of retribution with no law left
to contain it, the verdict of time.

Frank McNabb never sought command,
and he never lived long enough to

see what his leadership became.

He inherited a broken cause
and tried to hold it together

through duty and instinct, but
the war had outgrown discipline.

His few weeks at the helm bridged the
last breath of purpose and the first

full grasp of chaos, a path that would
lead straight to his own death and to

the final bloody reckoning in Lincoln,

after Dick Brewer fell at Blazer's
Mill, the regulators buried their first

leader and turned again toward war.

They chose Frank McNabb to take
the reigns, quiet, capable, and

already proven in gun smoke.

He'd been a foreman, a lawman, and
one of Tunsell's most trusted men.

If anyone could steady the
band of Fugitive, still calling

themselves deputies, it was Frank.

Under McNabb, the regulators
tried to remember what the

fight was supposed to mean.

Justice for John Tunstall, not
slaughter for its own sake.

Justice in Lincoln County had become
a corpse with too many hands on it.

Each week brought new raids,
ambushes and retaliations.

Names scratched from both ledgers.

Before the ink was dry, the Seven
Rivers gang riding for Murphy and

Dolan, proud the valleys south of town.

McNabb led his men into that country
hunting killers who were hunting them.

On April 29th, 1878, the hunters
became the hunted McNabb.

AB Sanders and Frank Coe rode near
Fritz Ranch, unaware the Manuel

Segovia, Bob Beckwith and Dutch Charlie
Reeling waited in, ambush the first

volley, cut the morning in half.

McNabb took a bullet in the
chest and dropped from his

saddle before he could draw.

Saunders was hit next badly wounded
and CO was dragged off alive.

A prisoner of the very
min they'd been tracking.

By sundown word of McNabb's,
death reached the others.

Another captain gone another
grave with no marker.

And with each burial, the regulators
grew fewer angrier and less certain

of what they were still fighting for.

They gathered in hiding to choose again.

This time the choice fell on
Josiah Gordon, doc Scurlock,

the educated one, the marksman,
the calm voice amid the fever.

Scurlock wasn't the loudest gun, but
he was the sharpest mind left standing.

He took command in the middle of chaos,
inheriting a company, half broken

and fully outlawed under scurlock.

The regulators pulled together long
enough to survive the coming storm,

but they would face the siege of
Lincoln, a five day inferno that

would decide the wars end and write
Billy the kids' legend in gunfire.

But in this moment.

In the rain At Fritz Ranch, the
regulators understood what they'd become.

Three captains dead in
less than two months.

Each one more desperate than
the last, the verdict of time.

W. Frank McNabb never lived to see the
justice he rode for he died believing

the fight still had purpose, though
history would prove it had already lost.

One.

His death marked the last
flicker of order before the war.

War burned into chaos, and as Doc Scurlock
took command, the regulators' cause

turned from righteousness to survival.

A company of ghosts chasing vengeance
through the storm that would soon swallow.

Lincoln Hole.

When Frank McNabb fell at Fritz Ranch,
the regulators buried their captain

under hard soil and harder silence.

But grief never lasted long
in Lincoln County, it turned

too quickly to vengeance.

There was one name on
every man's lips that week.

Manuel Segovia.

Segovia was a seven Rivers warrior,
a cowboy in gun hand riding for the

house, and the man most believed had
fired the shot that killed McMahon.

He hadn't hidden.

He'd gone home to Seven Rivers.

The outlaw settlement where Dolan's
allies gathered like wolves around

a carcass for the regulators that
made him both target and message.

On May 15th, 1878, the regulators
wrote out no courtroom, no warrant,

just a handful of men with guns and
the memory of their dead captain.

They've bounced Segovia near
the settlement accounts differ.

Some said he tried to run others
that he never got the chance.

Either way, the rifle spoke
and Manuel Segovia fell.

The official story claimed that he
tried to escape, but Lincoln County

was gunned with official stories.

Everyone knew what it was.

A killing for.

A killing a frontier.

Execution thinly dressed as justice.

And with that single volley, the
blood debt deepened in Seven Rivers.

The message was received.

The warriors and the house
writers swore their onos.

From this point on,
nobody expected prisoners.

Every man on both sides slept with a gun
under his coat and his boots on the floor.

The war had stopped
pretending it was about law.

Now it was about revenge,
naked and personal.

Somewhere in that smoke and
gunpowder haze, a new face

appeared among the regulators.

Tom oal, younger than most loyal to
a fault, and he'd soon become Billy.

The kid's shadow, the man who rode
closest when the rest began to fall away.

He joined them in the spring of 78,
just as Billy's name started to mean a

little something more than just trouble.

With each funeral and each
gunfight, Billy's voice carried

a little farther by summer.

He wasn't just a fighter.

He was the spark, the verdict of time.

The killing of Manuel
Segovia didn't end anything.

It just carved another
notch into the ledger.

Each side told itself.

The other fired first that
justice rode with their gun.

But by May of 1878, justice was
long dead in Lincoln County.

What remained was survival and
the countdown to the final siege

where every name left alive would
have to stand, shoot, or burn.

Inside the town of Lincoln,

by the spring of 78, Lincoln County
was bleeding from a hundred wounds.

The law wore too many faces,
and none of them were clean.

The regulators once sworn officers had
become fugitives the house, once merchants

had turned into warlords and somewhere
between the two wrote a 19-year-old

kid with a borrowed rifle and a taste
of justice gon sour Billy, the kid had

started the years a ranch hand under Fed.

Underestimated, still hoping for a
life that didn't end with a bullet.

But every grave, tonst Brewer,
McNabb carved away another

piece of who he'd been by May.

He wasn't just fighting for
his boss or his friends.

He was fighting because he
didn't know how to stop.

Seven rivers ran red and Lincoln
braced for whatever came next.

Each Don brought another
rumor, soldiers on the road.

Dolan Men riding East Mc
Swen, stockpiling guns.

Every door in town was bolted.

Every family waiting for the sound
that meant it had finally begun.

The verdict of time says this.

There were no heroes left.

By the summer of 78, only survivors,
the regulators called it justice.

The house called it order, but
history calls it what it was.

Revenge set loose on the frontier.

And in that chaos, Billy, the
kid, found the one thing the

law could never take from him.

His legend born in gunfire, tempered in
grief, and carried on the wind to every

saloon that ever whispered his name.

Next time the waiting ends, Lincoln
will burn, the war will break

open, and the boy from nowhere
will finally step into history.

The Lincoln County War had started
as a clash of ledgers and contracts.

By the spring of 78, it was nothing but
dust, blood, and names carved into wood.

Billy, the kid was no
longer just a hired hand.

He became the living symbol of
a county tearing itself apart.

Every trigger pulled in Lincoln
echoed across the territory, and

there were plenty more yet to come.

Angela: Each step deeper into this
war blurred the line between law

and outlaw, justice and revenge.

For the people living through it.

There was no black or white just survival
in a place where the law answered to

the highest bidder and with every grave
that filled the shadow of what was

coming through darker over Lincoln.

John: Next time on Galls and
Gunfights, we'll step into that storm.

Five days of siege, fire and
betrayal that would leave Lincoln

burning and Billy the Kid.

A legend.

It's the battle that ended
one war and started another.

The moment when everything that
could be lost was, and the boy

they called Billy became the outlaw
the world would never forget.

Angela: If you've been writing with
us through the dust and the gun

smoke, don't forget to follow dark
dialogue, gallows and gunfights.

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John: from the frontier towns
where the law wore a badge

by day and a mass by night.

This is dark dialogue, gallows and
gunfights, where we let the past take the

stand and the guilty face, the gallows.