Billy The Kid: The Endless Ride

By Michael Wallis
Illustrated, endnotes, bibliography, index, 328 pp., 2007. W.W. Norton & Co., 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110, $25.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Michael Russert
Michael Russert, a member of the North Shore Round Table of Long Island and the Company of Military Historians, has a MALS plus 60 hours in American Studies. He is Coordinator of The New York State Veteran Oral History Program.

Review:
Billy the Kid has not only been the topic of books, myths and legends, he has also been the subject of songs by such notables as folk song writer Woody Guthrie, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan and rocker Jon Bon Jovi. And, of course, classical composer Aaron Copland based an entire ballet entitled "Billy The Kid" on him.

So, who is Billy the Kid? Billy The Kid: The Endless Ride is an attempt at discovering the real person behind the mask of myth.

Michael Wallis provides a revisionist probe into the life of one of the Old West's legendary characters. The author admits "conjecture abounds" concerning many aspects of the Kid's life. He follows the Kid from his birth to his death 21 years later in New Mexico. Much uncertainty exists concerning Billy's paternity and his place of birth, yet through meticulous research Wallis discusses possible alternatives.

Born Henry McCarty, he was also known as Billy Bonney and William Bonney, and, of course, Billy The Kid. Much of the Kid's checkered life is blurred by myth, legend, exaggeration and down right untruth.

The Kid, not known by that sobriquet until newspapers named him that several months prior to his death, grew up during the tremulous Reconstruction era when large numbers drifted westward to find a new life or adventure. Wallis believes he has traced the Kid's ancestry and his migration west as closely as possible, while he attempts to separate fact from fiction.

Against the backdrop of the frontier, where Wallis examines the thin veneer of civilization that existed, he suggests that an evolving gun culture became a dominant force. Wallis focuses his study on three themes that he believes affected the Kid and others of his generation on the frontier.

First, men were "hardened by shedding of blood during the Civil War." Second, "the improvement of firearms." And third, "regular consumption of hard liquor." While not all readers may totally agree with the author's conclusions, they appear plausible and he fully supports his thesis.

Wallis accomplishes his goal in providing a new and groundbreaking biographical study of this elusive character of the Old West. He presents a fresh look at the infamous Lincoln County War, which involved a complex array of political and social issues. It was during these complex and chaotic events that many of the exaggerations focused around the mythical career of Billy The Kid.

The author proves himself to be an avid researcher and he has the ability to relate a fascinating story crafted in a readable style. He subtitles his book, The Endless Ride, fully realizing that no matter how much he sought the truth, Billy The Kid will always exist in that shadowy world of legend, for Americans do love their legendary characters. Billy The Kid, The Endless Ride is well worth the read.