A single wounded gunman held off a heavily armed posse in one of the most documented shootouts of the Old West, and the confrontation ended with both key figures buried side by side. The gunfight at Blazer’s Mill on April 4, 1878, pitted Buckshot Roberts against Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County Regulators. It remains one of the few frontier battles where credible witnesses recorded the events in striking detail, leaving little room for the myth-making that usually surrounds Western legends. Andrew L.
“Buckshot” Roberts was a seasoned buffalo hunter and frontiersman who had little interest in the Lincoln County War. The Regulators suspected he had a role in the death of their employer, English rancher John Tunstall, whose killing ignited the broader conflict. Among the Regulators that day was Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid. Roberts had already sold his ranch and was waiting to collect payment before leaving the region for good.
He rode into Blazer’s Mill, a busy settlement with a sawmill, general store, post office, and restaurant, expecting only to pick up his check. Instead, he found nearly the entire Regulator force gathered nearby. The Regulators were a deputized vigilante band seeking justice for Tunstall’s killing. Just days earlier, they had been involved in the deadly ambush of Sheriff William Brady.
Emotions were running high when Roberts appeared, and his perceived ties to the rival Murphy-Dolan faction made him a target. Frank Coe, one of the more level-headed Regulators, approached Roberts and tried to calm the situation. He urged Roberts to surrender peacefully, promising fair treatment. Roberts remained unconvinced, believing surrender would lead to his death at the hands of men who saw him as a loose end.
Regulator leader Dick Brewer grew impatient and ordered several men to surround and detain Roberts. Seeing armed figures moving toward him, Roberts reached for his Winchester. He and Charlie Bowdre discharged their weapons simultaneously. Roberts took a serious abdominal wound, while his shot struck Bowdre’s belt buckle, knocking him down.
Despite his injury, Roberts retreated to the doorway of the main house and kept fighting. John Middleton was hit in the chest, an injury that would affect him for life. Doc Skirlock was grazed by a bullet, and George Coe lost his trigger finger permanently. Billy the Kid reportedly rushed in during the chaos and was knocked unconscious.
Roberts eventually ran out of ammunition and took shelter inside, retrieving a powerful rifle, most likely a . 50-70 government Springfield. He positioned himself behind the barricaded doorway, lying on a mattress with a clear view of anyone approaching. Brewer, increasingly anxious and with morale dropping among his men, moved around the outside of the house and found cover behind a stack of logs.
He began firing toward the room where Roberts lay. Roberts stayed patient. When he saw a puff of smoke from the log pile, he waited for the shooter to reappear. When Brewer’s head came into view, Roberts fired a single, well-aimed shot that killed him instantly.
The Regulators, disheartened by the loss of their leader, withdrew from the scene. Roberts died the following day from his wounds. In a final twist, he and Dick Brewer were buried side by side near the site of the confrontation. Roberts had served as a Texas Ranger under the name Bill Williams, though documentation is scarce.
Conflicting reports place him in either the Union or Confederate Army during the Civil War. He reportedly worked alongside Buffalo Bill Cody during the buffalo hunting era. His nickname came from buckshot permanently embedded in his right shoulder, an injury that limited his arm movement and forced him to adapt a distinctive shooting technique. The encounter was not a planned battle but a tragic misunderstanding shaped by fear, pride, and the unpredictable nature of frontier justice.
Roberts had sought only to leave the region quietly, but instead became the central figure in one of the most memorable episodes of the Lincoln County War. The 1988 film Young Guns portrayed Roberts as a bounty hunter tracking Billy the Kid, a depiction that departs significantly from the documented record. Brian Keith played the role in a version that moved the confrontation to an outhouse and left Roberts’s fate ambiguous, while historians confirm he died the day after the real gunfight at Blazer’s Mill.