Each claimed the credit for having shot the victim. "No," said Charlie Bowdre, "I shot him myself. I dusted him on both sides. I saw the dust fly out on both sides of his coat, where my bullet went clean through him." They argued, but they did not go around the house again.
Roberts now staggered back into the house. He threw down his own Winchester and picked up a heavy Sharps' rifle which belonged to Dr. Appel, and which he found there, in Dr. Blazer's room. Brewer told Dr. Blazer to bring Roberts out, but, like a man, Blazer refused. Roberts pulled a mattress off the bed to the floor and threw himself down upon it near an open window in the front of the house. The gang had scattered, surrounding the house. Dick Brewer had taken refuge behind a thirty-inch sawlog near the mill, just one hundred and forty steps from the window near which this fierce little fighting man was lying, wounded to death. Brewer raised his head just above the top of the sawlog, so that he could see what Roberts was doing. His eyes were barely visible above the top of the log, yet at that distance the heavy bullet from Roberts' buffalo gun struck him in the eye and blew off the top of his head.
Billy the Kid was now leader of the posse. His first act was to call his men together and ride away from the spot, his whole outfit whipped by a single man! There was a corpse behind them, and wounded men with them.
Thirty-six hours later there was another corpse at Blazer's Mill. The doctor, brought over from Fort Stanton, could do nothing for Roberts, and he died in agony. Johnnie Patten, sawyer and rough carpenter, made one big coffin, and in this the two, Brewer and Roberts, were buried side by side. "I couldn't make a very good coffin," says Patten, "so I built it in the shape of a big V, with no end piece at the foot. We just put them both in together." And there they lie to-day, grim grave-company, according to the report of this eye-witness, who would seem to be in a position indicating accuracy. Emil Blazer, a son of Dr. Blazer, still lives on the site of this fierce little battle, and he says that the two dead men were buried separately, but side by side, Brewer to the right of Roberts. The little graveyard holds a few other graves, none with headboards or records, and grass now grows above them all.