Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride
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Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. This new biography separates myth from reality and presents an unforgettable portrait of this brief and violent life. Publishers Weekly The boy who would become Billy the Kid (1859-1881) was born Henry McCarty, perhaps in the Irish immigrant wards of New York City. Not much is known about his parents, and it's difficult to trace his whereabouts until his family turned up in Silver City, Colo., in the early 1870s. Both the facts and the legend pick up in 1877, when Henry-already known to some under the alias Kid-shot a man who was bullying him and began a life on the run. Wallis's reconstruction of the Kid's exploits is engrossing. But even more, Wallis (Route 66) shows Billy the Kid as a product of his era, one of profound social dislocation. Billy the Kid was, indeed, only the most legendary of a generation of "desperate men" who knew how to handle a gun. At the same time, a new kind of sensationalist journalism was being created, and reporters were more than happy to contribute to the creation of a myth. Wallis, the host of PBS's new American Roads, writes clean prose, occasionally enlivened by a particularly lovely turn of phrase ("the liquid rustle of cottonwood leaves"). Over the decades, countless books have been written about the infamous outlaw, and this is surely one of the best. 60 illus. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Preface xiPersonal Introduction xiiiMap: Billy the Kid Country xviiiPrologue: Quien Es? 1Once upon a Time 5On the Trail 13Wichita 19Brotherhood of the Gun 27Contagious War 35Pulp Fiction 41Silver Threads Among the Gold 51Land of Little Time 59One Step over the Line 71Gone on the Scout 81Saddle Tramp 91Kid Antrim 99First Blood 109At Large 119Banditti 127Seven Rivers 139Billy Bonney 151Eye of the Storm 159Dream Killers 167The Unfortunate War Spawns the Myth 181Endless War 193Firestorm 209Devil or Angel 219El Chivato 233Epilogue: Billy's Never-ending Ride 249Notes 251Bibliography 297Acknowledgments 309Index 313
