Were "Brushy Bill" Roberts and Billy the Kid the Same Person?
Part of the plot of the 1990 Western Young Guns II, "Brushy Bill" Roberts claimed to have been the famed outlaw Billy the Kid, and surprisingly enough, many people believed him
History tells us that Billy the Kid died at the hands of his sometimes friend, often foe, Pat Garrett on the night of July 14, 1881. But did he? Or did Billy escape to lead a long, uneventful life in Texas? It’s a question that’s intrigued the curious and historians for decades.
This possibility is explored in the 1990 movie Young Guns II.
Young Guns II is an American western action film released in 1990 as a sequel to Young Guns. It was written by John Fusco and directed by Geoff Murphy. The movie follows the life of Billy the Kid as played by Emilio Estevez.
For a Hollywood movie, it sticks surprisingly closely to the accepted narrative of known facts about Billy during the Lincoln County Wars until his reported death in 1881.
Brief Synopsis
At the time of the Lincoln County Wars—a conflict between cattlemen over ranches and politics in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory—Billy the Kid rode with a group called the “Regulators.” They were a group of skilled gunmen who planned to avenge the death of their ally John Tunstall, the first man killed in the ‘war.’
As the film opens, Billy the Kid, along with fellow outlaws Dave Rudabaugh and Pat Garrett, have formed a new gang. New Mexico’s governor, Lew Wallace, has issued arrest warrants for everyone involved in Lincoln County’s War.
Billy’s friend Doc Scurlock (who lives peacefully as a schoolteacher in New York) is arrested and imprisoned. Another Regulator, Jose Chavez y Chavez, is also captured. It’s up to Billy to lead the jailbreak and set them free. The plan is to escape and head to Mexico and freedom.
At some point in real life and on-screen, Billy the Kid meets with Governor Lew Wallace and is promised a pardon. There’s only one catch. The Governor wants Billy to testify against two other men.
Billy soon discovers it’s a trick and that he has no hope of escape. So far, the real-life facts match the movie version. As seen in the movie, Billy does escape when a companion drops a gun down the hole in an outhouse.
As he escapes, Billy shoots and kills two deputies.
Eventually, Pat Garrett is hired as Lincoln County Sheriff and given a hefty sum by a rancher to find and kill Billy the Kid. Garrett tracks the Kid to Pete Maxwell’s boarding house, and the rest, as they say, is history. Or is it?
Did Billy the Kid Escape?
Young Guns II is narrated by an older man, Brushy Bill Roberts, who’s telling the story to a historian—a lawyer named Charles Phalen.
Brushy Bill’s purpose in telling the story is to gain a pardon—promised years earlier by Governor Lew Wallace of New Mexico Territory to Billy the Kid.
Why is it so important to Brushy Bill? He claims he is the Kid!
Is it possible?
Who Was Brushy Bill Roberts?
While the movie uses the narration of Brushy Bill Roberts to frame the plotline, is there any truth in such a person’s existence? Actually, there is.
In early 1949, a lawyer named William Morrison had a client who claimed to be an outlaw named Jesse Evans. Evans told Morrison about another outlaw living in secret as Ollie Roberts of Hico, Texas. The man’s alias was Brushy Bill Roberts aka Billy the Kid.
Intrigued, Morrison set out to interview Brushy Bill. He became so convinced of Brushy Bill’s identity as Billy the Kid that he wrote a book, Alias Billy the Kid, published in 1955.
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