The Kid

Hansen’s (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) fictional treatment of Billy the Kid, the Old West killer, is entertaining and lively, a portrayal of swift and deadly frontier justice in the early 1880s of New Mexico. This is a fictionalized biography of Billy (1859–1881), but Hansen is no apologist for Billy’s cattle rustling, horse stealing, and murderous ways; instead, revealing Billy the Kid for what he really was—a handsome, likable, cold-blooded gunman. Much of the story covers the Lincoln County War between two rival business and political factions, the Murphy-Dolan bunch of owlhoots and the Tunstall-McSween partnership favored by Billy and his unwashed gang of vigilante Regulators. When Tunstall is murdered by a Murphy-Dolan posse, Billy and his saddle pals vow bloody revenge, and start bumping off Murphy-Dolan men, including the crooked county sheriff. When the Kid is not gunning down baddies and others who just get in the way, he is flirting, singing, and dancing with Mexican beauties, and courting Sallie Chisum, the niece of a real-life cattle baron, John Chisum. Both gangs get whittled down by soaking up too much lead, until Billy is convicted of murder, escapes jail after killing his two jailers, and is pursued by tenacious lawman Pat Garrett. Hansen’s colorful description of the New Mexico Territory as a lawless land of lying politicians and thieving businessmen is historically accurate, resulting in an excellent, transportive read. Agent: Peter Matson, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct.)