EPILOGUE TO OLD Bill WIILIAMS DOUBLECROSSES THE NUCHE – The Mysterious ‘Relative of the Ute Chief Walker’ in the San Luis Valley

Improbably, a close reading of secondary sources sheds light on how Old Bill Williams achieved the final honorific of a ‘chief’s burial’ by his erstwhile adoptive Nuche relatives. Williams biographer Alpheus Favour notes that John C. Fremont, trailing in the wake of the William’s relief party, “...came across a Ute, a relative of the Ute Chief Walker (Wakara), known to Fremont, and he conducted th…