HOW A BOY BECAME THE KID: RYAN C. COLEMAN'S BILLY THE KID- THE WAR FOR LINCOLN COUNTY

Henry McCarthy went by many name sin his short life; Henry Antrim, William H. Bonney, and best as Billy The Kid. He also had as many, if not more interpretations from hero to sociopath. Ryan C. Coleman finds a fresh angle with his debout novel Billy The Kid: The War For Lincoln County.

He stays close to the facts. Henry Antrim, orphaned and separated from his younger brother in what was already a rough childhood, travels the west surviving had to mouth, eventually falling in with rustlers and thieves. He becomes a member of The Seven Rivers rustling gang that become hired guns in The Lincoln County War. The war is between Lawrence Murphy, a merchant with connections to the notorious Santa Fe Ring that involved the territorial and possibly federal government. On the other side is Alexander McSween, a young lawyer, and John Tunstall a merchant and rancher from England with a rival store. The competition soon moves into bloodshed. Out of a sense of loyalty, Billy takes the side of McSween and Tunstall, fighting on the side of "The Regulators" backed by their side of the law, earning a reputation as a gunman. His past and the power of Murphy moves against him, making him an outlaw.

Most stories chronicle the back half of Bonney's story, with newly appointed Lincoln County Sheriff and former acquaintance Pat Garrett hunting him down. Coleman states in the book's afterward he was interested in doing an origin story of how The Kid became a legend. We get do get that in his character arc in how the combinations and fate combine to create the outlaw Garrett pursued. Coleman also hints that ully played into his legend to make it bigger for intimidation and much like Jesse James and Wild Bill Hickock got trapped in it. He is portrayed as a charming young man of good humor who blows with the wind and clings to those who accept him. Those two aspects of his personality led him into situations of violence to where gunplay is his first instinct.

In showing how The Lincoln County War formed his life, we get one of the best depictions of the event. Coleman lays out the players and power moves with both distinction and nuance and alludes to the class, politics, and ambitions that fanned the flames. He introduces Murphy in a sympathetic light that he twists within two pages. Tunstall, often viewed as an enlightened underdog, is painted with more shades of ambition. Ambition also explains McSween's place in the war as switching of alliances puts him in a tight spot. The right and wrong is less clear as the war sparks and escalates through unchecked capitalism running wild on the frontier with money and might throwing things out of balance and into violence. The story breaks down its intricacies without dampening the drama.

Billy The Kid: The War For Lincoln County delivers everything quality historical fiction should. Coleman taps into his screenwriting background with dialogue and sudden violence to place you viscerally into it's time and place. We get the gives the perspectives in the backroom and open range maneuvers of those involved. Ryan C. Colman creates a Shakespearean tale of political plotting and fate with dust, gunpowder, and blood.