Billy The Kid Research Paper

Billy the Kid is my kind of Cowboy
This issue of Living in the West explores the love affair we have with the great American Cowboy. Call them cowhands, cowpoke, cowpuncher or buckaroos, billions of dollars have been spent chronicling their storied history. With his Stetson hat, sunburned face, weathered dungarees and boots of leather, the cowboy has gone from a ranch hand to a blue color icon. In fact, America’s love affair with the cowboy has been around longer than the name “cowboy” itself. But I’m taking a left turn here because when talking about the old west, the only thing America loves more than a Cowboy…is an OUTLAW. I’m not referring to some 13th century, tight wearing, black-death carrying, tunic sporting, pan-pipe playing aristocratic
I’m talking about old west outlaws. Frontier outlaws. Gun toting’, barrels blazing, mustache growing, cattle rustling’, whisky drinking, Hell-raising outlaws! Outlaws pushed the limits of society and the law. They worked hard at “thieving” and even harder at not getting caught. From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Belle Starr and Jesse James, outlaws were the Wild West’s “hero’s” whose exploits were spun around campfires and kitchen tables from generation to generation. Earning their reputations by marauding, robbing, rustling, gambling and murdering, frontier outlaws were as admired for their criminal activities as they were for not getting caught-and not getting caught was a huge part of the outlaw mystic. Running from the law and spitting in the face of justice, outlaws were as well known for their adherence to following local law enforcement as Bernie Madoff is known for dispensing sound financial advice. That said, perhaps no outlaw of his
Having excelled as an accomplished horse kidnapper, Billy returned to New Mexico, (he went from state to state like a modern day Bedouin looking for a tranquil oasis,) where he hooked up with a gang of gunslingers and cattle rustlers involved in the notorious Lincoln County War between rival rancher and merchant factions in Lincoln County in 1878. The Lincoln County war was more known as much for cold blooded assignations as it was for a war. Each side was killing a member of the other side and vice versa; aka, modern day revenge killing, until the Governor had enough of the bloodshed, (seems it full-on all-out murder wasn’t good for his reelection) and put bounties on the outlaw’s heads, offering serious 1860's cash to kill the killers hired to fight the war for the ranchers and merchants in the first place. The whole affair had more revenge killings than a Liam Neeson flick. Afterward, the fully grown yet childlike Billy (slender build, prominent crooked front teeth and a love of singing-sort of like Miley Cyrus before she started smoking weed,) continued his outlaw's ways, stealing cows and rustling anything that could be rustled. On top of that, The Kid had a certain affinity for killing people. His crimes earned him a bounty on his head and he was eventually captured and indicted for killing a sheriff during the Lincoln County