Rich in Western history

Ask Drew Gomber about the question he's asked the most after his Western history presentations and he shudders, almost irritated by the question. "Did Billy the Kid really get killed and was he Brushy Bill Roberts?" Gomber said. "The answer is yes, he really got killed. Anyone who even looks at the record from a distance should know that." Gomber, a Western historian who has worked and appeared in a variety of shows on Discovery Channel, A&E, Biography and the now-defunct "Wild West Tech" TV series on the History Channel, was in Alamogordo on Tuesday for First National Bank's "Lunch and Learn" series. Gomber continued to expound on Roberts, who he said claimed to be Billy the Kid and was never killed by Pat Garrett. "(Roberts) was a pathetic, sad old man trying to make himself famous," Gomber said. "Before he claimed to be Billy the Kid, he claimed to be a member of the James Gang. He supposedly was also in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. None of it is true. He didn't do any of that. "In fact, we found (Roberts') family Bible and he was born in 1879. That means he was 2 years old when "The Kid" was killed..."The Lincoln County War originated with an insurance policy. It was not a range war, it was a war between merchants." Gomber went on to explain that a young Englishman, John Tunstall, arrived in Lincoln County seeking to go into business opposing people who had a stranglehold on the area. "He underestimated who he was dealing with and ultimately paid for it with his life," Gomber said. "He was murdered by a duly authorized sheriff's posse. His former friends and associates got together and called themselves the Regulators because they were going to regulate justice. They were appointed constables, so now there were two duly authorized groups of lawmen running around the countryside killing each other. That meant the law had broken down." Gomber said it became a "free-for-all" and no one will ever know exactly how many people were killed during the Lincoln County War. "My guess is about 100 in a six-month period," he said. But Gomber didn't stop there. He continued to talk more about the Lincoln County War in a way that puts the listener at the scene...AlamogordoDailyNews