Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático

Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático

by James B. Mills
Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático

Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático

by James B. Mills

Hardcover

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Overview

Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award in Western Nonfiction, 2023
New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Winner, 2023
Best First Book selected by True West Magazine in annual “Best of the West” feature, 2022

In the annals of American western history, few people have left behind such lasting and far-reaching fame as Billy the Kid. Some have suggested that his legend began with his death at the end of Pat Garrett’s revolver on the night of July 14, 1881, in Fort Sumner. Others believe that the legend began with his unforgettable jailbreak in Lincoln, New Mexico, several months prior on April 28, 1881. Others still insist his legend began with the publication in 1926 of Walter Noble Burns’s book, The Saga of Billy the Kid.

James B. Mills has left no stone unturned in his twenty-year quest to tell the complete story of Billy the Kid. He explores the Kid’s disputable origins, his family’s migration from New York into the Southwest, and how he became an orphan, as well as his involvement in the Lincoln County War, his outlaw exploits, and his dealings with Governor Lew Wallace. Mills illuminates the Kid’s relationships with his enemies, lovers, and numerous friends to contextualize the man’s character beyond his death and legacy. Most importantly, Mills is the first historian to fully detail the Kid’s relations with New Mexicans of Spanish descent.    

So, the question remains, who really was the person the world knows as Billy the Kid? Was he more than a young reprobate committed to a life of crime, who relished becoming the famous outlaw and cold-blooded, self-absorbed “sociopath” or “thug” that some still prefer him—need him—to be? Or was he in fact the generally good-hearted, generous, courteous, young vigilante that so many remembered with considerable fondness, who ultimately preferred the company of the more peaceable Hispanic population than his own Anglo people? In this groundbreaking biography, Mills takes the reader closer to the flesh-and-blood human being named Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, than ever before.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781574418781
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Publication date: 06/27/2022
Pages: 736
Sales rank: 160,512
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

JAMES B. MILLS was born in 1983 and resides in Australia. He has studied the American frontier and numerous other areas of history since childhood. He has published numerous articles for True West and Wild West magazines. He enjoys living a quiet life with his cat Bernard and dog Dennis.

Table of Contents

Preface - Writing of Me as You Have vii

Chapter 1 The Boy from Back East 1

Chapter 2 Henry 7

Chapter 3 On His Own Resources 35

Chapter 4 Windy 51

Chapter 5 La Placita 79

Chapter 6 Billy Bonney 99

Chapter 7 The Boy Was Proud 111

Chapter 8 We'll Give You a Game 133

Chapter 9 Before I Die 155

Chapter 10 Two Birds 171

Chapter 11 Oh Lord 183

Chapter 12 To a Finish 189

Chapter 13 The McSween Mob 203

Photo Gallery

Chapter 14 The Big Killing 233

Chapter 15 Steal Myself a Living 265

Chapter 16 To Lay Aside Our Arms 287

Chapter 17 A Precious Specimen 307

Chapter 18 Bilito 337

Chapter 19 A Game of Two 363

Chapter 20 Billy "the" Kid 405

Chapter 21 Long-Legged Son of a Bitch 437

Chapter 22 Best Known Man in New Mexico 457

Chapter 23 Hanged by the Neck 491

Chapter 24 Hello Bob 511

Chapter 25 Last Kid Standing 519

Chapter 26 Quién Es? 535

Chapter 27 A Kid for All Time 551

Endnotes 575

Bibliography 655

Acknowledgments 671

Index 673

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