A choice, and sometimes a
quick one, was an imperative necessity.

The next killing was that of Buckshot Roberts, at Blazer's Mill, near
the Mescalero Reservation buildings, an affair described in a later
chapter. Thirteen men, later of the Kid's gang, led by Dick Brewer,
attacked Roberts, who killed Dick Brewer before he himself died. The
death of the latter left the Kid chief of the McSween forces.

A great blood lust now possessed all the population. It wanted no law.
There is no doubt about the intention to make away with Judge Warren
Bristol of the circuit court. The latter, knowing of these turbulent
times in Lincoln, decided not to hold court. He sent word to Sheriff
William Brady to open court and then at once to adjourn it. This was on
April 1, 1878.

Sheriff Brady, in walking down the street toward the dwelling-house in
which court sessions were then held, was obliged to pass the McSween
store and residence. Behind the corral wall, there lay ambushed Billy
the Kid and at least five others of his gang. Brady was accompanied by
Billy Matthews (J. B. Matthews, now dead; postmaster of Roswell, New
Mexico, in 1904), by George Hindman, his deputy, and Dad Peppin, later
sheriff of Lincoln county. The Kid and his men waited until the victims
had gone by. Then a volley was fired. Sheriff Brady, shot in the back,
slowly sank down, his knees weakening under him. "My God! My God! My
God!" he exclaimed, as he gradually dropped. He had been struck in the
back by five balls. As he sank down, he turned his head to see his
murderers, and as he did so received a ball in the eye, and so fell
dead. George Hindman, the deputy, also shot in the back, ran down the
street about one hundred and fifty yards before he fell. He lay in the
street and few dared to go out to him. A saloon-keeper, Ike Stockton
(himself a bad man, and later killed at Durango, Colorado), offered him
a drink of water, which he brought in his hat, and Hindman, accepting
it, fell back dead.

The murder of Sheriff Brady left the country without even the semblance
of law; but each party now took steps to set up a legal machinery of its
own, as cover for its own acts. The old justice of the peace, John P.
Wilson, would issue a warrant on any pretext for any person; but there
must be some one with authority to serve the process. In a
quasi-election, the McSween faction instituted John Copeland as their
sheriff. The Murphy faction held that Copeland never qualifie