To Hell on a Fast Horse: The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett

by Mark Lee Gardner

Overview

“So richly detailed, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and the sweat of the saddles. ”
 —Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers

Billy the Kid—a.k.a. Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, and William Bonney—was a horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue, and cold-blooded killer. A superb shot, the Kid gunned down four men single-handedly and five others with the help of cronies. Two of his victims were Lincoln County, New Mexico, deputies killed during the Kid's brazen daylight escape from the courthouse jail on April 28, 1881.

For new sheriff Pat Garrett, an acquaintance of Billy's, the chase was on. . . .

The first dual biography of the Kid and Garrett, To Hell on a Fast Horse re-creates the thrilling manhunt for the Wild West's most iconic outlaw. Mark Lee Gardner digs beneath the myth to take a fresh look at these two men, their relationship, and their epic ride to immortality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061368295
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/08/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	325
Sales rank:	168,304
Product dimensions:	7.72(w) x 5.42(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

Mark Lee Gardner is the author of Rough Riders, To Hell on a Fast Horse and Shot All to Hell, which received multiple awards, including a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. An authority on the American West, Gardner has appeared on PBS’s American Experience, as well as on the History Channel, AMC, the Travel Channel, and on NPR. He has written for National Geographic History, American Heritage, the Los Angeles Times, True West, and American Cowboy. He holds an MA in American Studies from the University of Wyoming and lives with his family at the foot of Pikes Peak.

Table of Contents

Ghost Stories 1

1 Facing Justice 4

2 Trails West 38

3 War in Lincoln County 76

4 A New Sheriff 122

5 Outlaws and Lawmen 150

6 The Kid Hunted 174

7 Facing Death Boldly 202

8 The Darkened Room 221

9 Both Hero and Villain 258

10 Another Manhunt 285

11 Unwanted Star 313

Epilogue 362

Acknowledgments 379

Notes 387

Resources 481

What People are Saying About This

David Dary

“A masterpiece! Mark Gardner’s dual biography of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett cuts through the myth to tell the real story of two real figures in the Wild West. Gardner’s scholarship is superb. This work can only be called a classic.”

Robert M. Utley

“Incredibly deep research combines with the talents of a fine historian and writer to produce superb narrative history. The true character and relationship of these two iconic westerners emerge to suppress myth and correct more than a century of tomes laden with bad history.”

Hampton Sides

“The double-helix relationship between Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett is one of the abiding fascinations of the West. No one has come closer than Mark Lee Gardner to capturing their twin destinies and their inevitable final collision....you can almost smell the gunsmoke and the sweat of the saddles. ”

Editorial Reviews

Incredibly deep research combines with the talents of a fine historian and writer to produce superb narrative history. The true character and relationship of these two iconic westerners emerge to suppress myth and correct more than a century of tomes laden with bad history.

Robert M. Utley

The double-helix relationship between Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett is one of the abiding fascinations of the West. No one has come closer than Mark Lee Gardner to capturing their twin destinies and their inevitable final collision....you can almost smell the gunsmoke and the sweat of the saddles.

Hampton Sides

A masterpiece! Mark Gardner’s dual biography of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett cuts through the myth to tell the real story of two real figures in the Wild West. Gardner’s scholarship is superb. This work can only be called a classic.

David Dary

Incredibly deep research combines with the talents of a fine historian and writer to produce superb narrative history. The true character and relationship of these two iconic westerners emerge to suppress myth and correct more than a century of tomes laden with bad history.” %COMM_CONTRIB%Robert M. Utley

Western historian Gardner (Wagons for the Santa Fe Trade) delivers a “dual biography” documenting Sheriff Pat Garrett's hunt for the iconic outlaw William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid. As Gardner sees it, the battle between the wily Kid and the determined Garrett is “perhaps the greatest of our Old West legends.” Digging beneath the myths and melodrama, he begins in Las Vegas during Christmas week, 1880, when the capture and confinement of Billy the Kid made national headlines. Gardner then details the Kid's daring daylight courthouse escape on April 28, 1881, in a hail of gunfire, leaving bloodied bodies behind. “I am not going to leave the country,” said the Kid, “and I am not going to reform, neither am I going to be taken alive again.” The chase began, with Garrett finally gunning down the Kid on July 14, 1881. Gardner concludes with a survey of the Kid's “robust mythic afterlife” in books and films. Gardner's extensive research and authoritative approach ground this compelling historical recreation. B&w photos. (Feb. 9)

Publishers Weekly

Historian Gardner (Wagons for the Santa Fe Trade) succeeds in writing an accessible double biography of the iconic western outlaw Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett. Maintaining an objective perspective on both men in a narrative closely tied to historic source materials, Gardner's quick-moving story follows events of the civil war in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory in 1877–78, and the Kid's death-by-shooting at the hands of Garrett in 1881. This famous shot in the dark, however, became problematic for Garrett, who for the rest of his life had to fight the image of himself as the romantic outlaw's killer. VERDICT The final chapters describing Garrett as an old-style lawman in a postfrontier society, with interactions with President Theodore Roosevelt, serve to distinguish this book from other recent Kid biographies, such as Michael Wallis's Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride. Highly recommended both for readers of popular history and for scholars. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/09.]—Nathan E. Bender, Univ, of Idaho, Moscow

Library Journal