Billy The Kid Research Paper

Billy the Kid is my kind of Cowboy
This issue of Living in the West explores the love affair we have with the great American Cowboy. Call them cowhands, cowpoke, cowpuncher or buckaroos, billions of dollars have been spent chronicling their storied history. With his Stetson hat, sunburned face, weathered dungarees and boots of leather, the cowboy has gone from a ranch hand to a blue color icon. In fact, America’s love affair with the cowboy has been around longer than the name “cowboy” itself. But I’m taking a left turn here because when talking about the old west, the only thing America loves more than a Cowboy…is an OUTLAW. I’m not referring to some 13th century, tight wearing, black-death carrying, tunic sporting, pan-pipe playing aristocratic
Duke making a name for himself by his publically labeling his over taxed “tenaunts" outlaws for not paying rent.
I’m talking about old west outlaws. Frontier outlaws. Gun toting’, barrels blazing, mustache growing, cattle rustling’, whisky drinking, Hell-raising outlaws! Outlaws pushed the limits of society and the law. They worked hard at “thieving” and even harder at not getting caught. From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Belle Starr and Jesse James, outlaws were the Wild West’s “hero’s” whose exploits were spun around campfires and kitchen tables from generation to generation. Earning their reputations by marauding, robbing, rustling, gambling and murdering, frontier outlaws were as admired for their criminal activities as they were for not getting caught-and not getting caught was a huge part of the outlaw mystic. Running from the law and spitting in the face of justice, outlaws were as well known for their adherence to following local law enforcement as Bernie Madoff is known for dispensing sound financial advice. That said, perhaps no outlaw of his
time was more legendary than “Billy the Kid.”
Billy the Kid was born somewhere between 1859 and 1861. Given the name William Henry Bonney/McCarty. Billy the Kid had a rough start in life. Moving from town to town at an early age, The Kid traveled through Indiana, New York, Colorado and Kansas. The Kid bounced around the Midwest like a modern day Bedouins. The fact that Billy didn’t have a “Laura Ingalls Wilder” upbringing or that he frequented more foster homes (which in 1860 were more like child labor camps) than Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger, the biggest toll on Billy may have been the death of his mother died in 1874. As a result, The Kid turned to crime soon after.

The Kid first foray into “outlawhood” may have been as a horse thief in Arizona.
Having excelled as an accomplished horse kidnapper, Billy returned to New Mexico, (he went from state to state like a modern day Bedouin looking for a tranquil oasis,) where he hooked up with a gang of gunslingers and cattle rustlers involved in the notorious Lincoln County War between rival rancher and merchant factions in Lincoln County in 1878. The Lincoln County war was more known as much for cold blooded assignations as it was for a war. Each side was killing a member of the other side and vice versa; aka, modern day revenge killing, until the Governor had enough of the bloodshed, (seems it full-on all-out murder wasn’t good for his reelection) and put bounties on the outlaw’s heads, offering serious 1860's cash to kill the killers hired to fight the war for the ranchers and merchants in the first place. The whole affair had more revenge killings than a Liam Neeson flick. Afterward, the fully grown yet childlike Billy (slender build, prominent crooked front teeth and a love of singing-sort of like Miley Cyrus before she started smoking weed,) continued his outlaw's ways, stealing cows and rustling anything that could be rustled. On top of that, The Kid had a certain affinity for killing people. His crimes earned him a bounty on his head and he was eventually captured and indicted for killing a sheriff during the Lincoln County
War.

After his capture, Billy the Kid was sentenced to hang at High noon. However, Billy proved to be the kind of inmate that doesn’t take well to being told “stand here, eat that,” and managed a jail break, murdering two deputies in the process. Killing (at least) 21 people, most of them thugs, outlaws and killers themselves gave Billy a certain “likability” factor with the locals. However, killing two Deputies is a serious no-no, (Despite the fact that one of the deputies took great pleasure in taunting and torturing Billy.) On the run, Billy’s freedom was brief. Sheriff Pat Garrett caught up with the outlaw and fatally shot him in a dark bedroom at Maxwell Ranch in New Mexico, Billy’s last thoughts perhaps wondering why all the lights were out.

As with any legendary outlaw, Billy’s life is cluttered with more questions than answers. Some people believe that Billy was buried in New Mexico but died in Texas, many years later. Others believe that Pat Garret helped plot his escape and sacrificed two of his deputies to force a showdown with Billy. Interestingly, Pat Garrett wrote the most definitive account of Billy the Kids life, which is bizarre and fitting at the same time. I visited the exact spot Billy gunned down two deputies. A small marker outside the jail (now a museum) in Lincoln, New Mexico commemorates the shooting. If you wander inside you will find antiques and commemoratives. More interesting (as told to me by a local I met while standing in for a sno-cone,) is the stairs that proceed up to the cell that held Billy until his death are stained with the blood of Billy the Kid..and remain stained to this day! I never did see the stained stairs soaked with Billy’s blood (apparently a $20 bill and half a melted sno-cone is not enticement enough for stairs access,) but I want to believe it is; just like I want to believe that Billy The Kid died of old age…in a “well lit” bedroom in Texas.