Stalking Billy the Kid: Brief Sketches of a Short Life

Having written about New Mexico history for more than forty years explains the author it was perhaps inevitable that in time I should publish a few articles on Billy the Kid. After all he is the one figure from this states past whose name is known around the world. The Kids career although astonishingly short nonetheless left an indelible mark in the annals of the Old West. And his name William H. Bonney alias Billy the Kid seems locked forever into the consciousness of the starry-eyed public. Upon request the author continues I was able to assemble a collection of my varied writings pertaining to some of Billys real or imagined deeds. Each section opens a small window on an aspect of his tumultuous life or casts light upon others whose fortunes intersected with his. In this book I have stalked Billy in an erratic rather than a systematic way taking pleasure merely in adding a few new and unusual fragments to his biography. I trust that readers who have a fascination with the history and legend of Billy the Kid will find in these pages something of interest and value. As Eugene Cunningham wrote more than seventy years ago in our imagination the Kid still lives--the Kid still rides.