This story first appeared July 16, 2010.
United States Marshall Ameredith Robert B. Olinger (alias “Pecos Bob,” alias “The Big Indian”) was killed on April 28, 1881 outside of the Lincoln County Courthouse by legendary outlaw and fellow Hoosier Billy the Kid with the Marshall’s own gun. A double barrel shotgun that legend claims was loaded with silver dimes did the deed — a shotgun which Olinger loaded specially for the Kid.
Bob Olinger was born in Delphi, Indiana in April of 1850 the son of Wm. C. Olinger and Rebecca Robinson Olinger, from Carroll County, Indiana. Young Bob and his mother moved to New Mexico in the untamed Indian Territory following his older brother Wallace. Both Olinger boys fought for the Murphy-Dolan faction in the Lincoln County War, opposing Billy the Kid’s regulators. In the five-day Battle at Lincoln, Billy the Kid killed Olinger’s close friend, Bob Beckwith. Olinger began an intense hatred for Billy.
Bob Olinger has been described as a thug and a bully by nearly everyone that knew him. A giant of a man, Olinger was broad-shouldered with long hair that hung down to his shoulders and a fondness for strutting the wooden plank sidewalks dressed to the nines. His oversized sombrero was elegantly tasseled and his boots were ornately stitched. But make no mistake: Bob Olinger was a cold-blooded killer with several notches on the butt of his six shooter. He was fast on the draw, and he was not afraid of shooting an unarmed man, or a man walking away.
One witness remembers seeing Olinger picking his teeth with a sharp Bowie-knife during a poker game one night in Santa Fe in an attempt to impress people with his toughness. This same witness explained: “Olinger was an expert knife-thrower and was forever tossing his knife end-over-end into trees or hitching rails along the street. ‘Wow!’ the impressed children would squeal, and Bob would smirk and swagger.” Olinger’s fondness for gambling and liquor often placed him in bad company, and situations of poor judgment. Bob Olinger’s own mother said of him, “Bob was a murderer from the cradle, and if there is a hell hereafter then he is there.”
When the Kid became New Mexico’s most wanted man, Olinger was appointed U.S. Deputy Marshall by Sheriff Pat Garrett to help hunt him down. After the Lincoln County War ended, the Kid spent the next two years eluding the law living in and around Fort Sumner, a former military fort transformed into a tiny Mexican village. While in Fort Sumner, Billy killed a drunk at a saloon, but the killing was shrugged off and got almost no attention. However, the Kid’s next killing got plenty of attention.
On December 23, 1880 a posse trapped the Kid and his gang at a cabin in Stinking Springs and during the standoff a deputy, James Carlyle, was killed. The death was pinned on the Kid and ruined any chance for him to get the governor to give the Kid a previously promised pardon. Bob Olinger was delighted to hear that he would be one of the guards assigned to escort the Kid to his trial at La Mesilla. Bob Olinger put Billy the Kid on the southbound train for Mesilla with Billy sitting next to the window anchored in heavy chains and shackles. Olinger sat beside him with a shotgun across his lap, a pistol on each hip, and a Bowie-knife in his belt. All the way to Mesilla, Bob taunted the prisoner: “Your days are short, Kid. I can see that rope around your neck now.” To which Billy coolly replied, “Oh, I don’t know, Bob, There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.”
In Mesilla, Billy the Kid was convicted and sentenced to hang for the murder of Sheriff Brady during the Lincoln County War. The Kid was taken to Lincoln to await his execution on May 13, 1881, which just happened to be Friday the 13th. The news got better when Bob heard that he would serve as one of Billy’s two guards at the Lincoln County jail. Olinger bought a new 10-guage double-barreled shotgun for the occasion. It would be the last purchase he ever made.
The Kid was imprisoned in the Lincoln courthouse shackled to the floor hand and foot and guarded around the clock in the room behind Pat Garrett’s own office, which ironically was the old Murphy-Dolan store from the Lincoln County War. Olinger delighted in tormenting the helpless prisoner by waving his new shotgun under the Kid’s nose while saying: “Whoever gets this will feel it!” Ironically, the Kid’s reported response was, “Make sure it’s not you, Bob.” Pat Garrett himself said that Olinger and Billy the Kid had a ‘reciprocal hatred.’ Olinger supposedly drew a deadline in chalk across the middle of the room and warned Billy that if he ever stepped over it, he would be shot.
On Thursday, April 28, 1881, Sheriff Pat Garrett was away from town collecting taxes in White Oaks and purchasing lumber to construct the gallows from which the Kid would be hanged. Before leaving, Garrett had assigned deputies Bob Olinger and James W. Bell to guard Billy, cautioning them not to be taken in by Billy’s charm and winning ways. He warned them that if the Kid got the slightest chance, he would kill them both. Between 5 and 6 p.m., Olinger took five prisoners across the street to Sam Wortley’s hotel for dinner. Billy remained in his room, with Bell keeping watch.
Deputy James Bell, apparently treated Billy the Kid well; Garrett said that the Kid “appeared to have taken a liking” to Bell. Legend claims that the Kid asked Bell to take him to the outhouse behind the courthouse. Bell obliged and took the Kid outside still shackled in his leg-irons with handcuffs on. Once back inside the building, Billy made his move. Billy got the drop on Bell by slipping his small hands out of the cuffs and using the heavy chains to hit the deputy over the head. He then grabbed Bell’s pistol and told him to throw up his hands, but instead the deputy ran and the Kid had no choice but to shoot him. Billy’s original plan was to take Bell prisoner, lock him up, and slip out unseen before Olinger came back.
Witness Godfrey Gauss was outside at the time when he heard a shot, and as he looked up, he saw Bell burst out of the back door of courthouse shot through the body. “He ran right into my arms, expired the same moment, and I laid him down dead,” Gauss later said. Olinger, still dining at the hotel, heard the shot and rushed back across the street without his prisoners. While Bob Olinger entered the courthouse yard, Gauss rounded the corner to ask: “Have you killed the Kid?” At that very moment, Olinger heard his name called from above and looked up to see his own double-barreled shotgun pointing down at him from the upstairs window on the courthouse’s east side and replied, “No, but he has just killed me.” Olinger heard the Kid say, “Hello, Bob” just before being blasted into eternity by both barrels of his own shotgun. Deputy Sheriff and United States Marshall Bob Olinger died instantly.
After killing both deputies, Billy leisurely went about retrieving an axe to break his shackles and obtaining a saddled horse. Within moments he noticed he had acquired an audience that included the five other prisoners and many of Lincoln’s finest citizens, none of which seemed eager to interfere with Billy’s plans. Legend claims that Billy the Kid shook hands with many of them before riding slowly out of town whistling a lively tune. One of the witnesses said that by the time Billy finally rode off towards Fort Sumner, Bell and Olinger had been dead for over an hour.
At the courthouse today, two plaques mark the spots where Bell and Olinger fell. A large hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs is said to have been made by the Kid’s bullet after it exited Deputy Bell’s body. As for the rumor that Bob Olinger loaded his shotgun with silver dimes in hopes of decimating the body of Billy the Kid should he attempt escape, it’s just a legend. But it does make for a disturbing mental image nonetheless.
Next week . . . Another Hoosier Billy the Kid connection.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
