TAKING AIM AT A LEGEND
Novel about Billy the Kid paints a different portrait of the outlaw
What, another book about Billy the Kid? Ron Hansen’s “The Kid” is not revisionist history, nor is it an unveiling of newly found documents about William H. Bonney’s short, wild ride. Hansen’s new novel is an engrossing read. It comes alive thanks to a blend of history, remembrances and the author’s knack for imagined conversations. Bound together they lift the fabled outlaw’s life and times off the printed page. Here’s one slice of a Hansen-created conversation between The Kid and the infamous Jesse James in a Las Vegas, N.M., bar, sometime after his gang’s disastrous Northfield, Minn. bank robbery. James wants to recruit him for a reorganized gang: “All’s I need is a wizard gunslinger with sand in him. And has to be smarter than the dirtfarmin’ Reubens I been with.” The Kid replies, “I hardly do nothing with people involved. Railroads and banks, that’s complexicated.” He politely declining James’ invitation, saying, “I’m riding opposite of the owl-hoot trail now and not interested in your livelihood.” Hansen said in a phone interview that the two outlaws had met in Las Vegas, according to an account he read. “One thing Billy told Jesse was that he only stole cattle and horses,” Hansen said. “I think he was genial by nature and didn’t want to hurt people.” In Hansen’s book, The Kid shoots when shot at. Sometimes he doesn’t miss. “He didn’t show his temper unless he saw an injustice being done. What you find out is that he reacted to injury to others more than seeking out killing,” Hansen said. The Kid acknowledges killing two men, both in self-defense. In the novel, the wealthy cattleman John Chisum and homestead rancher Joseph C. Lea conspire to have him killed for economic reasons. “(The Kid) was increasingly considered a fiend with a lust for blood by those seeking commerce and prosperity in New Mexico, for whom he seemed the impediment, the hitch in the getalong, the enemy of progress,” Hansen writes. Chisum and Lea look to Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett to do their bidding. Garrett tracks down The Kid to Fort Sumner and kills him in July 1881. Hansen learned that The Kid spoke Spanish, which endeared him to Hispanics; they call him Billito. He charms young women, Anglo and Hispanic, with his aw-shucks friendliness, his blue eyes, his dancing and his singing. Hansen also brings into play such issues as the loss of Spanish land grants, the influence of the Santa Fe Ring and the untrustworthiness of public officials (such as Gov. Lew Wallace) in the New Mexico Territory. Hansen’s earlier novel, the award-winning “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” was adapted for the big screen in 2007. Hansen, a short-story writer and essayist, is a professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University.