William Henry McCarthy, better known as Billy the Kid, was born in 1859 in New York. He was a cowboy and gunfighter who ended up creating a legend by becoming an outlaw. Throughout his short life he used different names, such as William H. Bonney, Henry Antrim or Henry McCarthy.
He arrived in Lincoln County in the state of New Mexico where he lived for only four years, beginning as a cowboy and ending up being one of the most famous gunfighters in the territory. He was considered responsible for the deaths of twenty-one men, although only nine of them have been proven, of which five occurred in shootings in which other men participated with him, which is why it is not known if he was the main author of said deaths. two in self-defense, and two others during one of his escapes from prison.
Together with a friend, he dedicated himself to stealing saddles and horses from soldiers who went to the town canteen, until on one occasion a sergeant followed his trail, discovered him and locked him up. When he tried to escape by throwing salt in the jailer's eyes, they put chains on him. That same night they informed the sergeant that, it was unknown how, he had disappeared.
In the summer of 1877 he returned to Fort Grant. He was dressed in good clothes and was armed with a six-shot revolver. Frank Cahill, the town blacksmith, had a habit of ridiculing those he saw as weaker, and he took it out on him. There was a fight, and Billy shot him in the gut. The next day, Cahill died.
His first crime was robbing a rancher of several kilos of butter that he distributed among merchants. Easily discovered, he was released with a promise not to get into any more trouble.
He was barely 12 years old when he became, almost unintentionally, a criminal. He spent a lot of time with George Schaefer, a drunken hustler who, while robbing a laundromat, left Billy the loot and escaped. The boy was accused as the author of the crime and on the day he was to be tried, just to scare him because he was still a minor, he fled through a chimney.
The boy disappeared from Arizona, since he had been found guilty. He was transforming into a thin, agile young man, sixty kilos and one meter 68 centimeters. He had grown a mustache and beard, which barely showed on his face.
He headed east to New Mexico, to Lincoln County, where he would spend the next four years, the last of his life. He lived for a time at Fort Stanton, an Apache Indian guard garrison. It didn't take him long to join the most famous gang of thieves in New Mexico under the command of Jesse Evans. From that time he adopted the identity of William H. Bonney, no one knew why he chose that name. He became known as Billy Bonney or The Kid.
And it was in 1880 when the legend began to fully take shape: it was Billy's childhood friend, Pat Garrett, who, appointed sheriff of Lincoln County, focused more on his capture. He was arrested in December of that year and sentenced to hang, but Billy quickly went from being a gunman to an outlaw, as he managed to escape from prison after murdering those who were guarding him. However, this kind of freedom did not last long, as he was finally cornered on July 14, 1881 by Garrett, outside Fort Sumner, and immediately murdered, in the same way that he had perpetrated his crimes: with blood. cold.