Billy the Kid
The goat looked at the poster which listed a $5,000 reward for his capture dead or alive, in the dusty New Mexico town where he was to sleep for the night. "If you find this goat height 5' 8", 140 lbs. please report him to the police. He is one of the most bloodthirsty desperados in all of New Mexico- bring a weapon as his temper is as short as he is." Of course, the goat did not want to raise suspicions in tint Robinson, New Mexico a quaint dusty hamlet of less than 200 so when nobody was watching he tore up the poster. He most definitely did not have a short temper and was not a "bloodthirsty desperado"- people assumed too much about him. The goat was acting on instinct when he first shed blood.
The goat was very young, only 12 years old when the landlord for the filthy dumbbell tenement he and his mother lived in made the fatal mistake of insulting her. This single mother and her son had fled the Irish potato famine for New York City in the 1850's and she was already working a difficult job at one of the factories in the city when the landlord, a bulldog of a disagreeable and stern temperament came in to insult her, just as he had for months on end. William Bonney, or "Billy" as the neighbors called him, heard his mother being verbally abused for the umpteenth time and Billy carrying a pistol he had bought at a store, decided to take matters into his own hands. Anyone in that situation, dealing with a coarse, misogynist bigot would have been compelled to do the same thing as Billy did. Within seconds, the angry bulldog lay cold and dead on the floor but Billy knew that by the next morning he would have to leave the filthy New York City for a place where he would never be found. And so instinctively, after bidding his mother good-bye the goat fled on a train, not even in his teenage years to a series of temporary dwellings, including a farmstead in Indiana where the goat found some decent work as a stable-boy. He had concocted a story of an abusive father who had chased from his former home, earning money and sympathy along the way.
Suspicions soon rose that the goat was a murderer escaping the law and soon Billy found himself at the age of 14 boarding a train for Kirtland, Missouri, a city that had only a few decades before been the jumping-off point for the Latter-Day Saints on their journey to Utah. The religion had an emphasis on forgiveness and would have taken Billy in as a member, without fear of him ever being arrested for his murder but Billy knew that the authorities were still looking for him. It was after leaving the Mormon encampments for New Mexico, the goat had the distinct misfortune of meeting Sheriff Pat Garrity of San Marcos, an unforgiving and cruel wolf with a penchant for torturing prisoners and evicting widows who had fallen behind on their payments for homesteads. For whatever reason, the wolf had been entrusted with the safeguarding of all of Lincoln County, and he reigned with an iron fist. The saloon owner welcomed him into their saloons the way they would welcome an infestation of fleas under their fur and suffering his presence was like suffering food poisoning.
Gambling and prostitution were vices as was alcoholism and yet without many of those vices which the saloon catered to, the economy of many these frontier cities would have suffered complete collapse. Though Billy's lack of education made it hard for him to come up with a word for the practice, "hypocrisy" would have been perfect for Garrity. The wolf sought to "end all the iniquities" of these cities through his use (or more accurately, abuse) of the law and yet he was just as guilty of enjoying said "iniquities". He loved the fallen doves (and friends' wives) just as any young single male in the Old West would and he gambled and he would often drink himself stupid as well. In fact, his stops at the saloons and restaurants were merely an excuse to collect what the wolf called "protection fees", a code word for extortion. Since he also owned a great deal of land, he was also a realtor- one who sold undesirable land at inflated prices to those desperate enough to leave the Eastern seaboard for life in the Wild West. And when real bandits did come to town, Garrity also requested that his deputies take care of them. In Garrity, Billy the Kid saw a perfect villain, someone who would extort the business owner, someone who would forsake their sworn and sacred duty to chase after money and authority, a corrupt gouging realtor, and someone who would hide in his office, while his employees risked their lives to protect the city. The wolf was not worthy of wearing the badge and yet no one had the cojones to stand up to him- no one except Joseph Turnstall, an English fox tired of the incompetence.
This fox who Billy found as a father figure had recently emigrated from England and been gouged for the cost of farmland which it turned was not much of a farmland after all. Distrustful of Sheriff Garrity, Turnstall became the leader of the Lincoln County Regulators, a group which sought success in bringing peace and justice to the county where the incompetent Pat Garrity had failed miserably. Billy the Kid joined this group of vigilantes and reformed bandits in capturing the real menaces to society but once Garrity found there was actual competition, he responded rather violently. Conspiring with the sheriffs of other districts and counties, he instigated the Lincoln County War, which brought two law-enforcement agencies to war and while they were fighting, lawless bandits rushed into the power vacuum. Life in New Mexico at the time was harsh with the law enforcement agencies fighting each other and gangs like the Seven River Warriors. The experiences Billy took him with him were not very positive but he at least gained an idea of the survivalist mindset of the Old West. Now, he walked alone but he always carried a gun.
Which brings us to what the goat was doing now. He had come to the city of Fort Sumter, a town known for its nearby military base, a place he had not visited before but he had friends who lived there. He was hoping to find the other former Regulators in the city. When he saw that he was wanted by the law, he tore down the poster to avoid raising any more suspicion. He thought he was making a good decision leaving his old life behind the same way a snake would shed its skin when that skin became loathsome. But when the goat left for the home of an ursine friend by the name of Peter Maxwell who had offered him room and board for the night, little did he know that Garrity had tracked him down and set up an ambush.
The goat came home and it was well after dark- there was no electricity at the time obviously so Maxwell's home was pretty dark. In the dark, a goat's vision is never as good as a wolf's and Garrity after sneaking in while Maxwell was sleeping waited for the goat to come in. As soon as Billy opened the door and realized there was somebody else other than his friend in the house, he asked the dark figure who he believed to be Maxwell "Quien es?" (Who is it?) Before Billy could reach for his gun, Garrity coward that he was, shot him in the chest and then in the head, before leaving Maxwell's home. It was such an ignoble way for the runaway goat from New York to go and it was equally ignoble for the wolf to have killed him in such a manner. And yet, as anti-climactic as it was for a goat who really wanted to settle down, maybe even start a family, to die in such a manner, that was the fate of Billy the Kid.