Tag Archives: New Mexico

A Question of Bounty

Posted on May 31, 2014 | 26 comments

Back in October 2012, Paul Colt visited this blog with a post about Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Paul’s latest book, A Question of Bounty: The Shadow of Doubt is published this month by Five Star. Here he takes a second look at the death of Billy the Kid.

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Paul Colt

Two years ago Andi gave me the opportunity to share one of my favorite historical controversies. Pat Garrett claims he killed Billy the Kid, July 14, 1881. John Poe, Garrett’s deputy on the scene that night—and others—question Garrett’s claim. They suggest he killed the wrong man and covered it up. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in 19th C., Historical Novels, History of the West

Tagged Billy the Kid, New Mexico, Pat Garrett, Paul Colt

KIT CARSON: ‘GREAT AMERICAN HERO’ or ‘VILLAIN OF NAVAJO HISTORY’?

Posted on January 30, 2014 | 28 comments

I met Steven Kohlhagen through the American Westerns group of Goodreads. Steve kindly complimented me on the article I had written regarding posterity and memoirs, one of which was Buffalo Bill Cody’s Story of the West. Steve’s latest book, Where They Bury You, partially concerns Kit Carson, and Carson was one of the men Cody had memorialized. Carson’s scorched earth policy, used to remove the Navajo from their homeland, is something that, today, denigrates the man’s other accomplishments as a frontiersman. Yet, Cody claimed that the policy had actually saved lives. I therefore approached Steve to find out what his own research had uncovered. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in 19th C., Historical Novels, History of the West, Literature of the West

Tagged Dine Indians, James Henry Carelton, Kit Carson, Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, Mescalero Apache, Navajo, New Mexico, Steven Kohlhagen, Taos NM, Where They Bury You

Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett — The Shadow of Doubt

Posted on October 1, 2012 | 32 comments

Paul Colt and I had had a few interesting exchanges in the AmericanWesterns group of Goodreads when I learned he had written a book about the Lincoln County War. I’ve been lucky enough to snag him here to write a bit about one of the protagonists in that episode of New Mexico’s history, William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid. Continue reading →