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Old West Book Review: Thunder in the West; The Life and Legends of Billy the Kid

Thunder in the WestThunder in the West; The Life and Legends of Billy the Kid, Richard W. Etulain, University of Oklahoma Press, $29.95, Non-fiction, Cloth. Illustrations, Photos, Essay on Sources, Bibliography, Index.

At various times he was called Henry McCarty, Kid Antrim, and Billy Bonney.  However, most of us know him as Billy the Kid.  This biography of the Western outlaw is carefully researched and well written in a style that keeps readers turning pages even though we have been exposed to this character via books and movies as far back as we can remember.

The author, Richard W. Etutain is the former Director of the University of New Mexico. He has had a long and important career as a writer and editor of more than 50 books pertaining to the American West.  This book takes the reader on a journey beginning with Billy’s original birth place in New York in 1859.  His mother moved west with young Billy and his one brother when the boys were children; it is not known who Billy’s father was.  The family’s trait continued to New Mexico Territory, and the information includes the death of Billy’s kind, hardworking mother of consumption.  Billy meandered after that from one situation to another.

Without real parental supervision or help, he drifted in and out of trouble, killed a man in Arizona before his 20th birthday, fled back to New Mexico ahead of a hot Arizona posse, and was arrested several times always managing to escape.  Later, arrested for murders in New Mexico, he was jailed and awaited execution when he escaped again this time shooting and killing two sheriff’s deputies in Lincoln, New Mexico.

New Mexico politics comes into the life of Billy the Kid as he got mixed up in shoot-outs and became a gun-for-hire as various powerful political factions and wealthy land owners vied for power.  In time, Billy ran with a gang of outlaws stealing horses and cattle.

Meanwhile, there were many people who considered Billy a good friend and many girls were attracted to him.  He had friends in the Hispanic community, and spoke Spanish fluently.  Eventually Billy was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garret inside a house in Fort Sumner, New Mexico in 1881.

Everything pertaining to Billy the Kid has some controversy involved.  His birth, his little known family history, his mothers brief life, her marriage to a man who seemed to take no interest in his stepson, Billy’s involvement with politicians as well as land owners and desperadoes is all mired in controversy.  As his fame grew, many people remembered him and wrote or talked about their relationships with him even many years after his death, thus adding to the intrigue.

The second part of the book delves into all the best-known books and movies featuring Billy the Kid.  Etulain separates fact from fiction, complimenting those authors who have done serious and lengthy research.  The movies featuring Billy the Kid are mostly contrived plots filled with fistfight action and gun battles.  In the end we are still wondering why all the interest in a young, wayward character who even by modern standards would be known as little more than a dangerous juvenile delinquent.

This book takes the reader on a detailed, from beginning to end, Wild West journey featuring everything you ever wanted to know about Billy the Kid. It belongs in your Old West library.

Editor’s Note:   The reviewer, Phyllis Morreale-de La Garza is the author of many books about the Old West, including Death For Dinner, the Benders of (Old) Kansas, Silk Label Books, P.O. Box 399, Unionville, New York 10988. www.silklabelbooks.com

Heard Around The Bunkhouse #8 – Western Frontier Terms and Sayings

Western frontier terms In our feature Heard Around the Bunkhouse we bring you Western frontier terms and sayings that they used back in the Old West. Hope you enjoy them, and send us your favorite terms from those past times.

WEARING THE BUSTLE WRONG: A pregnant woman.

BEST BID AND TUCKER: Wearing your best clothes.

GET THE MITTEN: Being rejected by a lover.

BEND AN ELBOW – Have a drink.

BANG UP JOB – First Rate.

PONY UP – Hurry Up.

ROOSTERED – Drunk.

*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.

Another Killing For Dodge

Ben Daniels.

April 20, 1886, Globe Live Stock Journal, Dodge, Kansas – On last Thursday evening at about six o’clock, a shooing took place on the south side of the railroad on the sidewalk in front of Utterback’s hardware store, two doors west of Ed Julian’s restaurant, the latter gentleman being the victim in the affray; and his antagonist, ex-assistant city marshal Ben Daniels.

Four shots were fired, all by Daniels, all of which took effect on Julian. While Julian was found to be armed, he however, did not get to fire a shot; there is much diversity of opinion in the matter, some claiming it to have been a deliberate murder, while others assert it to have been justifiable. The evidence taken at the preliminary trial does not fully sustain either. It was a well known fact that these parties had been bitter enemies to each other for a long time, and both had made threats against each other, which fact was not only elicited at the preliminary, but was know to many of our people long before the shooting took place. Ben Daniels, at the preliminary before Justice Harvey McGarry, was placed under a $10,000 bond for his appearance at the next term of court.

The remains of Ed. Julian were taken in charge by the member; of Lewis Post, G. A. R., of this place, who gave them a very respectable burial with appropriate ceremonies. This was a very unfortunate occurrence for this place, and that too at a time when everything appeared to be moving along so harmoniously and quietly. But it appears that no one could have prevented this tragedy, not even our officers, no matter how vigilant they might have been; the bitterness which existed between them was almost certain to bring them together sooner or later, and as many predicted, that one or the other or perhaps both would be mortally wounded, if not killed outright.

Artist Frederic Remington

Artist Frederic Remington Although artist Frederic Remington had the look of an eastern lawyer or banker, on the inside he was a cowboy who could shoot and ride with the best. 
 
Remington was born in New York and went to college at Yale, where his size made him a powerhouse on the football field. Majoring in art, he found the structured classes boring. When Remington was 19 his father died, and Remington dropped out of school.
 
He wasn’t a lady’s man. As a matter of fact, he only painted a picture of one woman, and he destroyed that. But Remington was smitten by an Eva Caten. Denied permission to date her, a dejected Remington went to Montana. His first taste of the open spaces, and the wild, free life, changed him. 
 
While sitting around a campfire on the Yellowstone River he realized that within a few years the west he was experiencing would no longer exist, and he understood the need to chronicle it.
 
Remington spent time in Kansas City, roping and branding during the day, and painting at night. He spent his free time in bars swapping stories with cowboys. Later he headed to the Southwest where he met Comanche, Apache and Mexican vaqueros.
 
His experiences weren’t all pleasant. He failed at sheep ranching, got cheated out of a part ownership of a saloon, and searched fruitlessly for a mystical mine.
 
After countless rejections by publishers, finally on February 26, 1882 Harper’s Weekly published his first illustration. He then sold his entire portfolio to Outing Magazine.
 
Frederick Remington moved from illustrating, to painting, bronzes and stories, all depicting the authentic west. Although he only lived 48 years, the 2,500 paintings and drawings, 25 bronzes, and thousands of words produced by Remington preserves an important time in American history.

Old West Book Review: The Devil’s Triangle

The Devil's TriangleThe Devil’s Triangle, James Smallwood, Kenneth Howell, Carol Taylor, University of North Texas Press.  Paper, $19.95. Non-fiction, Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

This book is a well-written study of the War of Reconstruction in Texas between 1865 and 1877.  Gangs of ex-Confederate soldiers returning home to Texas after the “Lost Cause“ harbored hatred and resentment toward freedmen (ex-slaves) and Northern sympathizers who tried to begin new lives after the Civil War.

For more than ten years, roving bands of robbers and highwaymen, acting under the guise of getting even for past grievances were determined to use the war as an excuse for the murder and mayhem they created.  Most were really bandits and renegades using their hatred for a good excuse for their skullduggery.

One young ex-Confederate soldier, born and raised on a successful Texas farm, is featured in this book as one of the ringleaders operating throughout various Northeastern counties in Texas.  Ben Bickerstaff came from a disciplined, hard-working family.  He took to soldering at a young age, joined the Confederate Army when Texas went with the South and saw military action in a number of battles.  He eventually became a prisoner of war and spent time in a Northern prison camp.  A series of harsh experiences drove his hatred for the North, and by the time he returned home in Texas at Warts end, he was a bitter, battle-hard soldier determined to get even with everybody.

Bickerstaff was one of the organizers of the Ku Klux Klan, and apart from robbing and looting, he took part in the murders of many freedmen trying to live in their own new world.  With peace officers few and far between, Bickerstaff and his followers created nearly constant fear and unrest in the entire Northeastern corner of the state of Texas.  Due to his familiarity with the countryside learned from his boyhood, Bickerstaff and his followers were able to hide in heavily wooded areas where lawmen and bounty hunters could never successfully follow.

The book goes into detailed political maneuvers among those trying to create a. safe environment for law-abiding citizens living both in towns as well as on ranches.  The emotional turmoil spilling over after years of war continued to cause harsh feelings among the people, and some even privately took sides with Bickerstaff’s hatred for the North.  Bickerstaff’s crimes were horrific; folks who sympathized with the North were in peril until Bickerstaff’s own death at the hands of an armed group of townsfolk who had finally had enough of him.  Bickerstaff was a married man, and it sounds like his wife was as tough as he was.  Upon learning of his death, she angrily retrieved the body for burial in a place of her choice, even though the corpse had been beheaded.

We read about influential people such as Sam Houston trying to establish peace and tranquility in Texas newly returned to the Union.  The history of Texas Reconstruction between 1865 and 1877 is fascinating and sometimes shocking.  The authors have presented a serious, hard-hitting view of a difficult time in Texas history that has been mostly forgotten today.  This book belongs in your Old West library.

Editor’s Note: The reviewer Phyllis Morreale-de la Garza is the author of numerous published books about the Old West, including 9 Days At Dragoon Springs, published by Silk Label Books, P.O. Box 399, Unionville, New York 10988 www.silklabelbooks.com

*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.