Gospel According to Billy the Kid: A Novel

2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award Winner for Fiction–New Mexico Historical

Like many good stories of the old West, this one begins in a saloon. In 1914 in El Paso, Texas, two strangers strike up a conversation at the bar—Bill Roberts, a real-life figure who died in Hico, Texas, in 1950, and a former US Army scout whose brother knew Roberts by another name: Billy the Kid.

So begins The Gospel According to Billy the Kid, a tale of the old New Mexico territory, corrupt lawmen, honest ranchers, murder, betrayal, and the explosive events of the Lincoln County War that sent young Billy off seeking justice—and headed toward a bloody rendezvous with a sheriff hired to track him down. In the saloon Roberts has us imagine another story, told thirty-three years later over shots of whiskey, about a young outlaw given a second chance to find himself, to find peace, and to finally grow up and out from under the shadow of his own infamy.