the Kid. Billy - The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid

The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid
First published in 1882.

ISBN 978-1-775417-03-3

2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.

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The Noted Desperado of the Southwest
Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood made His Name A Terror
in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico
A Faithful and Interesting Narrative

YIELDING to repeated solicitations from various sources, I have addressed myself to the task of compiling, for publication, a true history of the life, adventures, and tragic death of William H. Bonney, better known as "Billy the Kid," whose daring deeds and bloody crimes have excited, for some years last past, the wonder of one-half of the world, and the admiration or detestation of the other half.

I am incited to this labor, in a measure, by an impulse to correct the thousand false statements which have appeared in the public newspapers and in yellow-covered, cheap novels. Of the latter, no less than three have been foisted upon the public, any one of which might have been the history of any outlaw who ever lived, but were miles from correct as applied to "the Kid." These pretend to disclose his name, the place of his nativity, the particulars of his career, the circumstances which drove him to his desperate life, detailing a hundred impossible deeds of reckless crime of which he was never guilty, and in localities which he never visited.

I would dissever "the Kid's" memory from that of meaner villains, whose deeds have been attributed to him. I will strive to do justice to his character, give him credit for all the virtues he possessedand he was by no means devoid of virtuebut shall not spare deserved opprobrium for his heinous offenses against humanity and the laws.

I have known "the Kid" personally since and during the continuance of what was known as "The Lincoln County War," up to the moment of his death, of which I was the unfortunate instrument, in the discharge of my official duty. I have listened, at camp-fires, on the trail, on the prairies and at many different plazas, to his disconnected relations of events of his early and more recent life. In gathering correct information, I have interviewed many personssince "the Kid's" deathwith whom he was intimate and to whom he conversed freely of his affairs, and I am in daily intercourse with one friend who was a boarder at the house of "the Kid's" mother, at Silver City, N. M., in 1873. This man has known Bonney well from that time to his death, and has traced his career carefully and not with indifference. I have communicated, by letter, with various reliable parties, in New York, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Chihuahua, Sonora, and other states of Mexico, in order to catch up any missing links in his life, and can safely guarantee that the reader will find in my little book a true and concise relation of the principal interesting events therein, without exaggeration or excusation.

I make no pretension to literary ability, but propose to give to the public in intelligible English, "a round, unvarnished tale," unadorned with superfluous verbiage. The truth, in the life of young Bonney, needs no pen dipped in blood to thrill the heart and stay its pulsations. Under the nom de guerre "the Kid," his most bloody and desperate deeds were wroughta name which will live in the annals of daring crime so long as those of Dick Turpin and Claude Duval shall be remembered. Yet, a hundred volumes have been written, exhausting the imagination of a dozen authorsauthors whose stock in trade was vivid imaginationto immortalize these two latter. This verified history of "the Kid's" exploits, devoid of exaggeration, exhibits him the peer of any fabled brigand on record, unequalled in desperate courage, presence of mind in danger, devotion to his allies, generosity to his foes, gallantry, and all the elements which appeal to the holier emotions, whilst those who would revel in pictured scenes of slaughter may batten until their morbid appetites are surfeited on bloody frays and mortal encounters, unaided by fancy or the pen of fiction.

Risking the charge of prolixity, I wish to add a few words to this, my address to the public, vide, a sermon (among many others), recently preached in an eastern city by an eminent divine, of which discourse "the Kid" was the literal, if not the announced text.

Although I do not propose to offer my readers a sensational novel, yet, they will find it no Sunday school homily, holding up "the Kid" as an example of God's vengeance to sinful youth. The fact that he lied, swore, gambled, and broke the Sabbath in his childhood, only proved that youth and exuberant humanity were rife in the child. He but emulated thousands of his predecessors, who lived to manhood and died honored and revered some for public and some for domestic virtues, some for their superior intellect, and many more for their wealth-how attained the world will never pause to inquire. "The Kid's" career of crime was not the outgrowth of an evil disposition, nor was it caused by unchecked youthful indiscretions; it was the result of untoward, unfortunate circumstances acting upon a bold, reckless, ungoverned, and ungovernable spirit, which no physical restraint could check, no danger appal, and no power less potent than death could conquer.

The sentiments involved in the sermon alluded to are as antedeluvian in monotonous argument, language, and sense, as the Blue Laws of Connecticut. Sabbath-breaking was the sole and inevitable cause of "the Kid's" murders, robberies and bloody death(?). Immaculate mentor of the soul. "The Kid" never knew when Sunday came here on the frontier, except by accident, and yet, he knew as much about it as some hundreds of other young men who enjoy the reputation of model youth. And, suppose "the Kid" had knowingly violated the Sabbath? He had Christ and his disciples as holy examplesconfining his depredations, however, to rounding up a bunch of cattle, not his own, instead of making a raid on his neighbor's corn field and purloining roasting ears.

"The Kid" had a lurking devil in him; it was a good-humored, jovial imp, or a cruel and blood-thirsty fiend, as circumstances prompted. Circumstances favored the worser angel, and "the Kid" fell.

A dozen affidavits have been proffered me for publication, in verification of the truth of my work. I have refused them all with thanks. Let those doubt who will.

Pat F. Garrett

Parentage, Nativity, Childhood, and YouthProphetic Symptoms at Eight Years of AgeModel Young GentlemanDefender of the HelplessA Mother"Holy Nature"A Young Bruiser-First Taste of BloodA FugitiveFarewell Home and a Mother's Influence