Dear Kinfolk,

At the age of 19, Black Bill’s life turned up-side-down.  Living comfortably with his parents and helping with the horse ranch was his life.  Then after the saloon shooting there was no time to pack,  just saddle up and get out of La Junta before the sheriff  arrives!

His boyhood was spent helping his father Albert track and tame the elusive wild horses near La Junta.   These horses were Mustangs, a small, wiry and sure-footed animal with great stamina.  They were the best for driving cattle and there was a good market for them.  Texas ranchers would buy seven to ten horses for each of their cowboys.  They would use these horses on the long cattle drives from Texas up the Chisholm Trail to Dodge City, Kansas.

According to his daughter, great-grandfather Albert had as many as 1100 head of horses.  I would assume that most of them were on the Comanche grasslands near La Junta.  Black Bill’s reputation for being a great horseman undoubtedly came from his experiences starting at the age of 10, learning to think like the wild horses they tamed (today we call it horse whisperers.)  Catching these spirited animals was sometimes accomplished by simply walking quietly after the horses on the grasslands, sometimes for days until the horses “wore down.”   This was the origin of the term “walking down a horse.”   His daughter said “he grew up to be one of the best bronk riders, calf ropers and all around cowboys anywhere.”

At the age of 19 William H. (Black Bill) Anderson had witnessed a number of town shootings, a time  when the West was ruled by the .45 Colt revolver.   The night of the shooting, Black Bill headed south to New Mexico, probably following the Goodnight Loving cattle trail.

The map might help show his travel route while on the run. There were no highways.

He changed his name to BILL LEE, perhaps because his real name had been posted on a wanted list?  One of granddad’s gun belts has the name Bill Lee on it.  We think he worked on ranches while making his way through New Mexico to the Southern California Cattle Trail.  This trail led to Tombstone Arizona which was rapidly becoming the last frontier and the site of a silver strike.  Ed Schieffelin had prospected the hills of Arizona and told his friend ” the only thing he would find in those hills would be his tombstone” as this was the territory of GERONIMO and his warriors.  After finding silver he named his mine,”Tombstone” and a city suddenly stormed into being out of a clear sky in April 1879,  just  seven years before Bill Lee rode into this famous western town.  Bill Lee became quite good at cards and a poker game they called “Faro.”  Many years later he spoke of knowing Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday, perhaps at a poker table?  However, I do not believe it would have been in Tombstone, as Bill Lee arrived after the gun fight at the OK corral.

Bill Lee found a job and home on the famous John H. Slaughter ranch near Bisbee, Arizona.  Slaughters fame came as a sheriff of Cochise County and cleaning up Tombstone after the Earp brothers and Doc Holiday departed.  As Bill rode out of Bisbee toward the Slaughter Ranch, he must have wondered how one cow could survive on 1000 acres of this rocky land with only mesquite bushes for vegetation.

The group pic is interesting in that each man has a cigar. Bill Lee is the one sitting on the far right. I assume this might have been taken in Arizona with the Slaughter ranch cowboys? Have no idea who the other men are.

However, when he rode upon the 65,000 acres of the Slaughter ranch he found the grama grass was “waist-high” blanketing the long oval San Bernardino Valley which boasted ten natural springs and intermittently flowing stream.  The valley stretched down into Mexico, rimmed and boarded by mountains all around.

Since the “cowboy element” made up a small but loud proportion of Cochise County outlaws,  it is doubtful that Bill Lee’s past was ever questioned by Slaughter.  What Bill did best, break wild horses, was probably the only thing John Slaughter needed to know about this young man.  It is interesting to note that the Clanton family, who were the Wyatt and Holiday’s bitter foes were  ranching neighbors of John Slaughter.  John Slaughter saw the killing of Billy Clanton and the McLowerys as a “lawless blunder.”

Mexican cattle rustlers may have been responsible for Bill Lee having one of the narrowest escapes of his life.  Bill told the following story to his daughter.  He spotted some Mexicans stealing Slaughters cattle.  He started chasing them and crossed over the Mexican border.  Once over the border, the rustlers captured him and placed him in their jail.  While in jail he made the acquaintance of the jailer’s daughter.  She brought him his meals each day and Bill referred to her as a  “sweetheart.”   She must have been fond of him as she gave Bill a silk tie which many years later he gave to his daughter Georgia Faye.  While they were trying to decide on Bill’s fate, she secretly let him out of jail late one night.  So, once again, Bill made his escape late at night.

We ALL owe this sweetheart a special thanks!

Jim Lee