The Kid: A Novel

The Kid: A Novel

Ron Hansen

Scribner (2016)

A new novel from Ron Hansen, the award-winning author of
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
, about an iconic American criminal of the old West: legendary outlaw, Billy the Kid.

Born Henry McCarty, Billy the Kid was a diminutive, charming, blond-haired young man who, growing up in New York, Kansas, and later New Mexico, demonstrated a precocious dexterity at firing six-shooters with either hand—a skill that both got him into and out of trouble and that turned him into an American legend of the old West. He was smart, well-spoken, attractive to both white and Mexican women, a good dancer, and a man with a nose for money, horses, and trouble. His spree of crimes and murders has been immortalized in dime westerns, novels, and movies. But the whole story of his short, epically violent life has never been told as it has been here.

In
The Kid
, Ron Hansen showcases his masterful research and inimitable style as he breathes life into history, bringing readers back into the late 1800s and into Billy’s boyhood as a ranch hand just trying to wrest a fortune from an unforgiving landscape. We are with Billy in every gunfight and horse theft and get to know him in full before his grand death in a hail of bullets in 1881 at the age of twenty-one. Original, powerful, and swiftly told,
The Kid
is an unforgettable read about a uniquely American anti-hero.

**

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for my sister Alice

Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true.

—WILLIAM GOLDMAN,
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

MAJOR CHARACTERS

BILLY’S FAMILY

Catherine Bonney McCarty Antrim (1829–1874)
Emigrated to New York City from Ireland; gave birth to sons, Josie and William Henry; met Billy Antrim in Indiana, married him in Santa Fe. Died of tuberculosis when the Kid was fourteen.

William Henry Harrison Antrim (1842–1922)
Married Catherine McCarty in 1873; stepfather to Billy and Josie. Laborer and prospector.

Joseph Edward “Josie” McCarty (1854–1930)
Saw nothing of his younger brother after 1877. Died penniless in Denver.

William Henry McCarty (1859–1881)
Also known as Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, William H. Bonney, and Billy the Kid.

BILLY’S FRIENDS

Charles Bowdre (1848–1880)
Raised in Mississippi but became a cowhand in New Mexico for John H. Tunstall. A Regulator from 1878. Common-law husband of Manuela Herrera.

Richard M. Brewer (1850–1878)
Born in Vermont and raised in Wisconsin. A cowhand for John H. Tunstall and later a Regulator.

John Simpson Chisum (1824–1884)
Wealthy cattle baron on rangeland along the Pecos River and a financial backer of John H. Tunstall.

Sallie Chisum (1859–1934)
Uncle John’s niece and sweetheart of the Kid.

Franklin Coe (1851–1931)
A farmer at La Junta on the Rio Hondo. A Regulator.

George Washington Coe (1856–1941)
An Iowa cousin of Franklin Coe. Farmed on the Rio Ruidoso and became a Regulator.

Thomas O. Folliard, Jr. (1858–1880)
A red-haired Texan of Irish descent who became a Regulator and was the Kid’s best friend.

Alexander Grzelachowski (1824–1896)
Called Padre Polaco, a former Catholic priest educated in Poland and the owner of a restaurant and store in Puerto de Luna.

Alexander Anderson McSween (1843–1878)
A Canadian who studied for the Presbyterian ministry, then left for law school at Washington University. Wound up in Lincoln in 1876 and worked first for L. G. Murphy, then for his rival, John H. Tunstall.

Susan Ellen Hummer McSween (1845–1931)
Ran away from her home in Pennsylvania at the end of the Civil War and married Alexander McSween in 1873 in Atchison, Kansas.

Paulita Maxwell (1864–1929)
Wealthy daughter of Lucien Maxwell, educated at St. Mary’s Convent boarding school in Colorado. Sweetheart of the Kid.

John Middleton (1854–1882)
Worked as a cowhand for Hunter & Evans, then joined L. G. Murphy & Co. before signing on with John H. Tunstall. A Regulator.

Josiah Gordon “Doc” Scurlock (1849–1929)
Attended medical school in New Orleans before finding work in the Southwest. Married sixteen-year-old Antonia Herrera and joined Charlie Bowdre, his brother-in-law, as a cowhand on John Tunstall’s ranch.

John Henry “Harry” Tunstall (1853–1878)
Educated at London Polytechnic Institution, clerked in his father’s firm in Canada before becoming a cattleman on the Rio Feliz and founding the J. H. Tunstall & Co. Merchandise Store in Lincoln, a rival of L. G. Murphy’s the House.

L. G. MURPHY AND COMPANY

Frank Baker (1857–1878)
A cultured man from a good family in Syracuse. Became an associate of Jimmy Dolan.

Joseph Hoy Blazer (1829–1898)
Iowa dentist who bought a ranch and sawmill on the Tularosa River and gave the mill his name.

James Joseph Dolan (1848–1898)
Born in County Galway, Ireland, emigrated to America as a boy, joined the Army, was discharged from Fort Stanton in 1869, and joined L. G. Murphy & Co.

Nathan A. M. Dudley (1825–1910)
A lieutenant colonel in the 9th Cavalry Regiment, assumed command of Fort Stanton in April 1878.

Jesse Evans (1853–1882)
A horse thief for John Chisum at the Jinglebob Ranch, became head of an outlaw gang called the Boys.

John Kinney (1847–1919)
Originally from Massachusetts, achieved the rank of sergeant in the Army, then ran a cattle-rustling operation from his ranch in Las Cruces.

Jacob Basil Mathews (1847–1904)
Raised in Tennessee, moved west as a miner, then a farmer, selling his ranch to John Tunstall to tend the House saloon and serve as a deputy sheriff.

William Scott “Buck” Morton (1856–1878)
Well educated in Virginia before becoming a foreman on Jimmy Dolan’s cow camp on the Rio Pecos.

Lawrence Gustave Murphy (1831–1878)
An Irish immigrant who joined the Army in Buffalo in 1851, retired as the commandant of Fort Stanton, and founded the brewery and store that would become the House. Called the Lord of the Mountains.

CIVIL AUTHORITIES

William J. Brady (1829–1878)
From County Cavan, Ireland, a former Army officer who was elected sheriff of Lincoln County. Employed by L. G. Murphy.

Warren Henry Bristol (1823–1890)
Appointed associate justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court by President Grant in 1872.

Huston Ingraham Chapman (1847–1879)
An engineer and lawyer who established a practice in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and had Susan McSween as a client.

Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (1850–1908)
Raised on a Louisiana plantation, became a buffalo hunter in Texas, then a cowhand and saloonkeeper in Fort Sumner before being elected sheriff of Lincoln County in 1879.

Ira E. Leonard (1832–1889)
Became a lawyer in Wisconsin, then a judge in Missouri before establishing a legal practice in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1878.

Ameredith R. B. “Bob” Olinger (1850–1881)
Born in Indiana, followed his brother Wallace to Seven Rivers and became a stock detective, then a deputy sheriff in Lincoln County.

William Logan Rynerson (1828–1893)
Educated at Franklin College in Indiana. Appointed district attorney for the Third Judicial District in New Mexico in 1876.

Lewis Wallace (1827–1905)
Author, lawyer, Union general during the Civil War, and governor of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881.

– PART ONE –

BEAUTIFUL DREAMER

(NOVEMBER 1859–FEBRUARY 1878)

- 1 -

WIDOW MCCARTY

Y
ou’ll want to know about his mother, she being crucial to the Kid’s becomings.

She was born Catherine Bonney in 1829 in Londonderry, Ireland, a pretty Scotch-Irish girl with honey yellow hair and with a coy, happy, flirtatious personality that invoked courtliness and gentility in older men. She fled Ireland just to be free from her overbearing parents, sailing to America from Liverpool on the ship
Devonshire,
and earning fare for her passage and then some by serving as a lady-in-waiting for the child daughter of an earl. Catherine fell in with hard-bitten Irish in New York City’s slum of Five Points, found menial work in a French laundry, and married an Irish dockworker named Michael McCarty, giving birth to Joseph Edward “Josie” McCarty on March 19, 1854, and William Henry McCarty on November 23, 1859.

She failed to get birth certificates for both boys, and so their ages would forever be fluid.

Soon after the start of the Civil War, Catherine’s disenchanted husband discovered a high degree of patriotism in himself and joined the 69th Infantry New York State Volunteers, an Irish regiment. With the help of an Indianapolis cousin, Michael got permission to transfer to Indiana’s 5th Battery of Artillery Volunteers, and he served them without flair or distinction before dying of a gunshot wound in the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.

So Widow McCarty took her sons to Indianapolis, where Michael McCarty’s shirttail relatives were making do, and it was there in 1865 that she became cordial with William Henry Harrison Antrim, the American son of Irish parents who’d been for ninety days an infantry private with Indiana’s 54th Regiment. His first three names were those of the ninth president of the United States, who died in office just before Antrim was born, but he grew up to be just an affable goof with a high forehead who pronounced the word
ain’t
as “ainunt.” A clerk and messenger for the Merchants Union Express Company, Antrim was twenty-three, or thirteen years Catherine’s junior, but he was easygoing company and wasn’t ugly, he adored his fine Cate when he wasn’t drunk, and he got on with the boys, whom he demanded call him Uncle Billy. When Antrim became a lazing fixture on the chesterfield sofa in the house, it was determined that to avoid confusion Billy McCarty would henceforth be called Henry, his middle name. The Kid was not fond of it.