Billy The Kid

Cowboy, army guide, farmer, peace officer, and character in his own right, John P. Meadows arrived in New Mexico from Texas as a young man. During his life in the Southwest, he knew or worked for many well-known characters including: William Billy the Kid Bonney, Sheriff Pat Garrett, John Selman, Hugh Beckwith, Charlie Siringo, and Pat Coghlan. Meadows helped investigate the disappearance of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain, and later bought part of downtown Tularosa, New Mexico, where he served a term as mayor. The recollections gathered here and edited by John P. Wilson are based on Meadows's interviews with a reporter for the Alamogordo News, a partial transcript of his reminiscences given at the Lincoln State Monument, and a talk he gave by invitation at Roswell, New Mexico, to refute inaccuracies in the 1930 MGM movie Billy the Kid. Meadows's lucid presentation appeared in the Roswell, New Mexico, Daily Record where he spoke about Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and other experiences from the Southwest's frontier days.

Patrick Floyd Garrett, widely known as "Pat," (1850-1908) had tracked down and killed the outlaw Billy the Kid but also became a victim of the tangled politics of the time. He has been maligned by writers, libeled by Hollywood and deprecated by many of his contemporaries. But despite them, all his deeds retain for him a niche in the gallery of fast shooting peace officers who helped to bring law and order to the frontier West. When he died, there was rejoicing in some quarters and relief in others--as might be expected in the case of a controversial figure. There was also genuine and profound sorrow in the rugged hearts of many in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona, as well as farther afield, and the circumstances surrounding his death, ostensibly at the hands of a most unlikely cowboy named Wayne Brazel, have puzzled and intrigued historians since that spring day in 1908 when he was shot to death and left lying in a sand drift on a lonely road. But was Pat Garrett shot by Wayne Brazel, or hired killer Jim Miller? Brazel confessed, but few believed his story and he was acquitted. Colin Rickards' book sheds light on this unhappy affair which still remains a source of controversy. Colin Rickards has done extensive research on Pat Garrett including checking official court records, investigating contemporary accounts and conducting interviews. He separates fact from fantasy in this meticulously documented account. An authority on frontier history, the author has written numerous articles and books on the Old West. A journalist by profession, Rickards has applied the same techniques to ferreting out the true stories of life and death adventures in western history. More information on this controversial period in American Southwestern history, the heroes and the villains can be found in these and other Sunstone Press books: "Alias Billy the Kid" by Donald Cline and "Sheriff William Brady" by Donald R. Lavash. www.sunstonepress.com

Sort outlandish fiction from no-less-outrageous fact in this wild ride with the West's Gentleman Gunfighter.

Robert Andrew Clay Allison was a jumble of contradictions. Mentally unstable and mean as a rattlesnake, he was also a fierce defender of the innocent. A hard drinker but a quiet-spoken man. A hell raiser who was an impromptu preacher. He was as feared for his prowess with pistol and Bowie knife as he was famous for loving whiskey and dancing. Largely forgotten today, his legend once sprawled across the frontier from Cimarron to Mobeetie, where he was known to careen drunkenly through the streets wearing only his gunbelt and his boots. Donna Blake Birchell places one of New Mexico's most fascinating figures back among his more well-chronicled peers.