Billy the Kid: Robin Hood or hoodlum? After 90 years of romantic myths, this book shatters the spell and uncovers the brutal, even stranger truth about the youngest of the famous Western desperadoes. Billy Bonney, whose death in 1881 ended a reign of terror in New Mexico, has become legendary as a defender of small settlers against big ranchers... a lighting draw who dropped 21 men, one for each year of his life... a "gentleman outlaw who was gunned down unarmed and helpless.