To Hell on a Fast Horse Updated Edition: The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett – The Classic Dual Biography and Legendary Manhunt

To Hell on a Fast Horse Updated Edition: The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett – The Classic Dual Biography and Legendary Manhunt

“So richly detailed, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and the sweat of the saddles.”—Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author From Spur Award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner, his classic dual biography of Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett, detailing Garrett’s riveting chase of the notorious bandit—now updated with a new afterword covering new developments in the Billy the Kid story. 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, NM, deputies, killed during the Kid’s brazen daylight escape from the courthouse jail on April 28, 1881. After dspensing with his guards and filing through the chain securing his leg irons, The Kid danced a macabre jig on the jail’s porch before riding away on a stolen horse as terrified townspeople—and many sympathizers—watched. For new sheriff, Pat Garrett, the chase was on . . . To Hell on a Fast Horse recreates the thrilling manhunt for the Wild West’s most iconic outlaw. It is also the first “dual biography” of the Kid and Garrett, two larger-than-life figures who would not have become the stuff of legend without the other. Drawing on voluminous primary sources and a wealth of published scholarship, Mark L. Gardner digs beneath the myth to take a fresh look at these two men, their relationship, and what they would come to mean to a public enamored of a violent national past. But who were the real men behind the legends, and what forces drove them to their final, fatal encounter? Lawman vs. Outlaw: Go inside the complex relationship between the charismatic outlaw Billy the Kid and the relentless sheriff Pat Garrett, two men whose lives were fated to collide. - A Historic Manhunt: Follow Garrett's determined pursuit across New Mexico, from Billy’s brazen courthouse escape to the final, tense standoff at Stinking Spring. - Myth vs. Reality: Discover the true story, meticulously pieced together from primary sources that separate the facts of the American West from the tall tales. - The Wild West: Experience the grit and gunsmoke of 19th-century New Mexico during the violent Lincoln County War, a bloody feud that shaped the legends of both men. “Gardner uses original eyewitness accounts and newspaper reports at the time, both of which add a you-are-there quality. He also delves into the century-long mystery surrounding Garrett’s murder years later, and arrives at a surprising conclusion.” - New York Post “Evocative...Gardner renders a time, place and a people with sincerity and accuracy.” - Santa Fe Reporter “Absorbing.” - Sacramento Bee “A freewheeling, yet meticulously researched, dual biography....Gardner’s passion for his subject shines through on every page.” - History Book Club “Digging beneath the myths and melodrama, [Gardner] begins in Las Vegas during Christmas week, 1880, when the capture and confinement of Billy the Kid made national headlines... Gardner’s extensive research and authoritative approach ground this compelling historical recreation.” - Publishers Weekly “As gripping as any thriller.” - Library Journal “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, author of the New York Times bestsellers Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers “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.” - Robert M. Utley 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, the Travel Channel, and on NPR. He has written for the Los Angeles Times , True West , Wild West , American Cowboy , and New Mexico Magazine . He lives with his family in Cascade, Colorado.