Standoffs, saloons, and sunsets spring to mind when one envisions the rough and tumble early days of the American frontier.

In the annals of American western history, few people have left behind such lasting and far-reaching fame as Billy the Kid. Some have suggested that his legend began with his death at the end of Pat Garrett’s revolver on the night of July 14, 1881, in Fort Sumner. Others believe that the legend began with his unforgettable jailbreak in Lincoln, New Mexico, several months prior on April 28, 1881. Others still insist his legend began with the publication in 1926 of Walter Noble Burns’s book, The Saga of Billy the Kid. James B. Mills has left no stone unturned in his twenty-year quest to tell the complete story of Billy the Kid. He explores the Kid’s disputable origins, his family’s migration from New York into the Southwest, and how he became an orphan, as well as his involvement in the Lincoln County War, his outlaw exploits, and his dealings with Governor Lew Wallace. Mills illuminates the Kid’s relationships with his enemies, lovers, and numerous friends to contextualize the man’s character beyond his death and legacy. Most importantly, Mills is the first historian to fully detail the Kid’s relations with New Mexicans of Spanish descent. So, the question remains, who really was the person the world knows as Billy the Kid? Was he more than a young reprobate committed to a life of crime, who relished becoming a famous outlaw and cold-blooded, self-absorbed “sociopath” or “thug” that some still prefer him—need him—to be? Or was he in fact, the generally good-hearted, generous, courteous, young vigilante that so many remembered with considerable fondness, who ultimately preferred the company of the more peaceable Hispanic population than his own Anglo people? In this groundbreaking biography, Mills takes the reader closer to the flesh-and-blood human being named Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, than ever before.

For many years, movie audiences have carried on a love affair with the American West, believing Westerns are escapist entertainment of the best kind, harkening back to the days of the frontier. This work compares the reality of the Old West to its portrayal in movies, taking an historical approach to its consideration of the cowboys, Indians, gunmen, lawmen and others who populated the Old West in real life and on the silver screen. Starting with the Westerns of the early 1900s, it follows the evolution in look, style, and content as the films matured from short vignettes of good-versus-bad into modern plots.

Winchester Warriors: Texas Rangers of Company Dm, 1874-1901 is Number 6 in the Frances B. Vick Series.

Outlaws, cattlemen and a plethora of quirky pioneers once riddled southeastern New Mexico. In November 1892, E.W. Doll and J.B. Coates ignited rumors of an eight-foot petrified man in McKittrick Cave. A massive fire and subsequent shootout led to the demise of Phenix, one of the Old West's most scandalous towns. And in August 1932, Bonnie and Clyde kidnapped Carlsbad's Deputy Sheriff Joe Johns. Authors Donna Blake Birchell and John LeMay explore these little-known tales and more that have beguiled this region for centuries.

In The Story of Oklahoma, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves appears as the "most feared U.S. marshal in the Indian country." That Reeves was also an African American who had spent his early life enslaved in Arkansas and Texas made his accomplishments all the more remarkable. Black Gun, Silver Star sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late nineteenth-century America--and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Bucking the odds ("I'm sorry, we didn't keep Black people's history," a clerk at one of Oklahoma's local historical societies answered one query), Art T. Burton traces Reeves from his days of slavery to his Civil War soldiering to his career as a deputy U.S. marshal out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, when he worked under "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker. Fluent in Creek and other regional Native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In this new edition Burton traces Reeves's presence in the national media of his day as well as his growing modern presence in popular media such as television, movies, comics, and video games.

The Old West was coming to an end. Two legendary outlaws refused to go with it. As leaders of the Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid executed the most daring bank and train robberies of their day. For several years at the end of the 1890s, the two friends, along with a revolving band of thieves, eluded law enforcement while stealing from the rich bankers and Eastern railroad corporations who exploited Western land…until they rode headlong into the twentieth century. In The Last Outlaws, Thom Hatch brings these memorable characters to life like never before. From their early holdup attempts to that fateful day in Bolivia, Hatch draws on a wealth of fresh research to go beyond the myth and provide a compelling new look at these legends of the Wild West. Includes Photographs

In the 1870s, Deadwood was a thriving—and largely lawless—boomtown. And as any fan of western history and films knows, stagecoach robberies were a regular feature of life in this fabled region of Dakota Territory. Now, for the first time, Robert K. DeArment tells the story of the "good guys and bad guys" behind these violent crimes: the road agents who wreaked havoc on Deadwood's roadways and the shotgun messengers who battled to protect stagecoach passengers and their valuable cargo. DeArment shows in dramatic detail how for two years gangs of robbers ruled the road, perpetrating holdups and killings, until lawmen and stage-company and railroad agents finally brought an end to the mayhem. The characters populating this violent tale include such legendary figures as Wild Bill Hickok and the famous railroad detective James L. "Whispering" Smith, a formidable opponent of bandits. We also get to know the men who operated the stages, the lawmen and company men who ran and defended the coaches, and the outlaws who fought against them. DeArment tells where these men came from and what became of them after the outlawry ended. He ends his account in the 1880s with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and its spectacular rendition of a shotgun robbery, featuring an actual Deadwood stagecoach. After nearly a century and a half, the Deadwood stage continues to command our attention.

Think gunfighter, and Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid may come to mind, but what of Jim Moon? Joel Fowler? Zack Light? A host of other figures helped forge the gunfighter persona, but their stories have been lost to time. In a sequel to his Deadly Dozen, celebrated western historian Robert K. DeArment now offers more biographical portraits of lesser-known gunfighters—men who perhaps weren’t glorified in legend or song, but who were rightfully notorious in their day. DeArment has tracked down stories of gunmen from throughout the West—characters you won’t find in any of today’s western history encyclopedias but whose careers are colorfully described here. Photos of the men and telling quotations from primary sources make these characters come alive. In giving these men their due, DeArment takes readers back to the gunfighter culture spawned in part by the upheavals of the Civil War, to a time when deadly duels were part of the social fabric of frontier towns and the Code of the West was real. His vignettes offer telling insights into conditions on the frontier that created the gunfighters of legend. These overlooked shooters never won national headlines but made their own contributions to the blood and thunder of the Old West: people less than legends, but all the more fascinating because they were real. Readers who enjoyed DeArment’s Deadly Dozen will find this book equally captivating—as gripping as a showdown, twelve times over.

Settlers in the frontier West were often easy prey for criminals. Policing efforts were scattered at best and often amounted to vigilante retaliation. To create a semblance of order, freelance enforcers of the law known as man-hunters undertook the search for fugitives. These pursuers have often been portrayed as ruthless bounty hunters, no better than the felons they pursued. Robert K. DeArment’s detailed account of their careers redeems their reputations and reveals the truth behind their fascinating legends. As DeArment shows, man-hunters were far more likely to capture felons alive than their popular image suggests. Although “Wanted: Dead or Alive” reward notices were posted during this period, they were reserved for the most murderous desperadoes. Man-hunters also came from a variety of backgrounds in the East and the West: of the eight men whose stories DeArment tells, one began as an officer for an express company, and another was the head of an organization of local lawmen. Others included a railroad detective, a Texas Ranger, a Pinkerton operative, and a shotgun messenger for a stagecoach line. All were tough survivors, living through gunshot wounds, snakebites, disease, buffalo stampedes, and every other hazard of life in the Wild West. They also crossed paths with famous criminals and sheriffs, from John Wesley Hardin and Sam Bass to Wyatt Earp, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid. Telling the true stories of famous men who risked their lives to bring western outlaws to justice, Man-Hunters of the Old West dispels long-held myths of their cold-blooded vigilantism and brings fresh nuance to the lives and legends that made the West wild.