Goodbye Billy The Kid

Did Pat Garrett kill the wrong man in 1881 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, or did the outlaw known as Billy the Kid live on as William Henry Roberts until 1948? W.C. Jameson analyzes the evidence, including use of new technology to produce a compelling case for Billy's survival. Heralded by Booklist as an enjoyable reexamination of a legendary piece of Americana, this book traces the life of the famous desperado and the controversy that still is debated today. Now in paperback!

In The West of Billy the Kid, renowned authority Frederick Nolan has assembled a comprehensive photo gallery of the life and times of Billy the Kid. In text and in more than 250 images-many of them published here for the first time-Nolan recreates the life Billy lived and the places and people he knew. This unique assemblage is complemented by maps and a full biography that incorporates Nolan’s original research, adding fresh depth and detail to the Kid’s story and to the lives and backgrounds of those who witnessed the events of his life and death. Here are the faces of Billy’s family, friends, and enemies: John Tunstall and John Chisum, Sheriff Pat Garrett and Governor Lew Wallace, Jimmy Dolan and Bob Olinger, Alexander McSween and Paulita Maxwell, and many others. Here are Santa Fe and Silver City as Billy the Kid saw them, Lincoln, Las Vegas, and Tascosa. Recent photographs show the Kid’s haunts as they appear today.

Author Jim Johnson has been intrigued with the Old West, its lore, and its legends all of his life. His interest began while watching the old black and white western movies made in the 1940s and 50s. Over the years he has collected and read thousands of nonfiction books and magazines on western outlaws and lawmen. Today, his library overflows with these nonfiction western books and magazines. Jim read these books and magazine articles thoroughly and with caution. He was amazed at the contradictions, not only within books, but between books, and some of the fiction added to glamorize the books. His research over the last 25-30 years has taken him across the southwest, including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, and the midwest, including Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana. He has copies of thousands of documents from archives, government records, and internet records. He has also used online sources

A central character in legends and histories of the Old West, Billy the Kid rivals such western icons as Jesse James and General George Armstrong Custer for the number of books and movies his brief, violent life inspired. Billy the Kid: A Reader’s Guide introduces readers to the most significant of these written and filmed works. Compiled and written by a respected historian of the Old West and author of a masterful new biography of Billy the Kid, this reader’s guide includes summaries and evaluations of biographies, histories, novels, and movies, as well as archival sources and research collections. Surveying newspaper articles, books, pamphlets, essays, and book chapters, Richard W. Etulain traces the shifting views of Billy the Kid from his own era to the present. Etulain’s discussion of novels and movies reveals a similar shift, even as it points out both the historical inaccuracies and the literary and cinematic achievements of these works. A brief section on the authentic and supposed photographs of the Kid demonstrates the difficulties specialists and collectors have encountered in locating dependable photographic sources. This discerning overview will guide readers through the plethora of words and images generated by Billy the Kid’s life and legend over more than a century. It will prove invaluable to those interested in the demigods of the Old West—and in the ever-changing cultural landscape in which they appear to us.

Even before he was shot and killed in 1881, Billy the Kid’s charisma and murderous career were generating stories that belied his brief life—and that only multiplied, growing to legendary proportions after his death at age twenty-one. In Thunder in the West, Richard W. Etulain takes the true measure of Billy, the man and the legend, and presents the clearest picture yet of his life and his ever-shifting place and presence in the cultural landscape of the Old West. Billy the Kid—born Henry McCarty in 1859, and also known as William H. Bonney—emerges from these pages in all his complexity, at once a gentleman and gregarious companion, and a thief and violent murderer. Tapping new depths of research, Etulain traces Billy’s short life from his mysterious origins in the East through his wanderings in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. As we move from his peripatetic early years through the wild West to his fatal involvement in the Lincoln County Wars, we see the impressionable boy give way to the conflicted young man and, finally, to the opportunistic and often amoral outlaw who was out for himself, for revenge, and for whatever he could steal along the way. Against this deftly drawn portrait, Etulain considers the stories and myths spawned by Billy’s life and death. Beginning with the dime novels featuring Billy the Kid, even during his lifetime, and ranging across the myriad newspaper accounts, novels, and movies that alternately celebrated his outlaw life and condemned his exploits, Etulain offers a uniquely informed view of the changing interpretations that have shaped and reshaped the reputation of this enduring icon of the Old West. In his portrayal, Billy the Kid lives on, not as a cut-throat desperado or a young charmer but as both—hero and villain, myth and man, fully realized in this twenty-first-century interpretation.

Melzer offers an impressive new book about famous New Mexico gravesites, usually the only monuments left to honor the human treasures who helped shape state, national, and often international history.

"All of history is mystery," Dale L. Walker says, and he proves his point in this lively, humorous--and rational--approach to the West's greatest puzzles. Did Davy Crockett, for example, go down swinging Ol' Betsy, defending the ramparts of the Alamo--or was he captured? Who is buried in Jesse James's grave? Was the man Pat Garrett shot that night really Billy the Kid? How did Black Bart, "the gentleman bandit," disappear? Did Sacajawea, the famous "Bird Woman" who scouted for Lewis and Clark, die twice? The possibilities unfold as Walker brings together little-known facts and the elusive connections that shed light on the biggest enigmas of the American West. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The orphaned, bucktoothed, New York Irish boy speaks Spanish and wears a Mexican sombrero. He claims his name is William Bonney. His amigos call him “Kid.” To newspapers in the New Mexico Territory and across America, he is “Billy the Kid.” William was among the bravest of the McSween alliance in the Lincoln County War. He was lucky, too—lucky enough to shoot his way out when the rest of his faction was cornered and slaughtered in battle. He was later captured and condemned to hang, but he killed his guards and escaped. Now, William has one last chance. He heads into Old Mexico with his lover, the fierce Apache maiden Tzoeh. There he hopes to start a new life, live in peace and obscurity, and be forgotten. But powerful Anglo ranchers plot to use William’s hot temper, unmatched courage, consummate loyalty to his amigos, and superb skill with a six-gun for their own ends.