While many lionize Billy the Kid, the man who killed him, Sheriff Patrick Floyd Garrett, has a rarely told but riveting true story all his own. His adventurous life spawned many a far-fetched, exciting legend. In 1896, Garrett's investigation of the still-unsolved murder of Albert J. Fountain on the White Sands led to nothing but a gunfight and a dead deputy. Some say that Garrett faked the details the night the Kid was brought to ultimate justice, while others swear another wannabe hero did him in. In perfect irony, Garrett's own 1908 death is shrouded in mystery. Some report he died by the hand of Billy the Kid himself. Author John LeMay exposes fabricated tales for what they are and focuses on memories long forgotten about Billy the Kid's personal grave digger, Sheriff Pat Garrett.

Sort outlandish fiction from no-less-outrageous fact in this wild ride with the West's Gentleman Gunfighter. Robert Andrew Clay Allison was a jumble of contradictions. Mentally unstable and mean as a rattlesnake, he was also a fierce defender of the innocent. A hard drinker but a quiet-spoken man. A hell raiser who was an impromptu preacher. He was as feared for his prowess with pistol and Bowie knife as he was famous for loving whiskey and dancing. Largely forgotten today, his legend once sprawled across the frontier from Cimarron to Mobeetie, where he was known to careen drunkenly through the streets wearing only his gunbelt and his boots. Donna Blake Birchell places one of New Mexico's most fascinating figures back among his more well-chronicled peers.

“A great exposé . . . that humorously captures the many myths that Americans are willing to believe and that make up the tapestry of the Old West.” —Former Representative Morgan Nelson While many respectable books on Billy the Kid aim to demystify his illusory life, this one-of-a-kind collection proudly has no such intention. Find all of the untold and potentially true—but very unlikely and highly embellished—stories of the Kid’s life, death and enthralling life thereafter. Be thrilled by sightings of Billy’s ghost riding through old Fort Sumner and marvel at his search for the fabled Lost Adams Diggings. Wonder at the mysterious thefts of his tombstone and discover the famed desperado’s dozen or so doppelgangers who posthumously popped up all across the Southwest. Courtesy of yarn-spinning raconteurs of yore, author John LeMay unveils the many forgotten and discarded tales of the legendary William H. Bonney, an everlasting emblem of the American West.

While many lionize Billy the Kid, the man who killed him, Sheriff Patrick Floyd Garrett, has a rarely told but riveting true story all his own. His adventurous life spawned many a far-fetched, exciting legend. In 1896, Garrett s investigation of the still-unsolved murder of Albert J. Fountain on the White Sands led to nothing but a gunfight and a dead deputy. Some say that Garrett faked the details the night the Kid was brought to ultimate justice, while others swear another wannabe hero did him in. In perfect irony, Garrett s own 1908 death is shrouded in mystery. Some report he died by the hand of Billy the Kid himself. Author John LeMay exposes fabricated tales for what they are and focuses on memories long forgotten about Billy the Kid s personal grave digger, Sheriff Pat Garrett."

True to its nickname, New Mexico enchants some souls so much they never leave. The Express St. James of Cimarron plays host to the cantankerous spirit of former owner Thomas James "T.J." Wright. At the Trinity Hotel in Carlsbad, Miss Ruby occasionally pranks unwitting guests and still cares for the rooms where she once worked. The gentle ghost of Julie Staab sits weeping at the bar of La Posada when not running bath water in her former room. And in death, Byron T. Mills looks over the Las Vegas Plaza Hotel he owned and neglected in life. Local author Donna Blake Birchell shares the chilling stories of these permanent spectral guests.

Life in early New Mexico was often perilous. Geographic isolation attracted outlaws and ruffians, and skirmishes often arose between the indigenous tribes and settlers. In response, the U.S. government set up military forts and outposts to protect its new citizens. These strongholds include Fort Craig, where logs were made to look like cannons to fool Confederate troops. Kit Carson, John Pershing and Billy the Kid all called Fort Stanton home, before it became the first federal tuberculosis sanatorium and later a detention center for German prisoners of war. Author Donna Blake Birchell relates little-known yet highly important Civil War battles, the tragedies of the Navajo and Mescalero Apache internments and other dramatic frontier stories.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. By what miracle can an assortment of seemingly unrelated particles come together and correctly assemble to form a human being? Amazingly, once aggregated, these atoms, molecules, and compounds manage to interact reasonably coherently during our lives but seek to return to their dusty state when death occurs. Of the billions of our species who have existed on earth over the millennia, most have quietly and inexorably returned to ashes and dust when their term of life expired. This book tracks some of the misadventures of selected corpses, including burials that went awry to body snatching, exhumations, human-relic collection, and assorted desecrations. Over the years, it seems that a remarkable number of bodies have failed to enjoy the admonition to “Rest in Peace.” Whether these aberrations in the burial process have disturbed the afterlife of the departed, everyone is dying to discover the answer.

Itinerant journalist Ash Upson was a true "rolling stone" of the western frontier, first kicking around New York with Edgar Allen Poe and then tutoring the children of Mormon leader Brigham Young in Utah before making his way to New Mexico. There he befriended two of the Wild West's greatest legends: outlaw Billy the Kid and the man who slayed him, Sheriff Pat Garrett. Told mostly through Upson's own letters to his family back East, learn the history of the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid, and Pat Garrett firsthand from the very man who knew them best: Ash Upson.