Reputed to have killed his first man at the age of 12, William Bonney went on to gun his way into Western legend as Billy the Kid. When he was finally shot himself at the age of 21, the Kid was famous throughout the country as the boy who, so he boasted, had killed a man for every year of his life.

This is the story of William Bonney as told by the lawman who ended his notorious career. While explaining the public sympathy that the citizens of the Southwest often accorded youths like Bonney, Garrett challenges the glorified legends of the Kid, offering instead the more genuine story of a young, reckless cowhand who became a hired gun.

Combining the best elements of eyewitness history with the dramatic flair of a great western novel, this is the clearest account we have of the meteoric career of a man some thought of as a murdering fiend, and others as the Robin Hood of the Southwest.