In his concise and fast-moving "To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West" (William Morrow; 336 pages; $26.99), historian Mark Lee Gardner sets the record straight about the thrilling manhunt for Billy the Kid by his nemesis, Sheriff Pat Garrett. He uses meticulous research to give Garrett his due as more than just “the man who shot Billy the Kid.” This dual biography of the Kid and Garrett goes beyond the books, songs, films and legends that have nurtured the generally accepted lore that Billy the Kid is a folk hero and Garrett a villain. In fact, Garrett was a man of persistence and pursuit who brought the horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue and cold-blooded killer to justice.

Garrett was born in 1850 in Alabama to a prosperous farmer and slave owner, but his family’s fortune disappeared with the Civil War. After a dispute with his brother-in-law over the remaining estate, Garrett struck out for Texas in 1869 with little more than a rifle, a saddle, a bridle and a horse. He and a buddy tried farming for a while, but when they met a Georgia native who was about to embark on the buffalo hide business, the three young men joined forces. The work was seasonal, and during the intervals Garrett abandoned the buffalo range, gambling away some of his earnings. He would years later recall meeting Bat Masterson in Dodge City, Kan., and Wyatt Earp would remember Garrett as among the cowtown’s legendary cast of gun-toting characters.

Garrett never explained why he and his friends chose to leave Dodge and go to New Mexico. A writer friend of Garrett’s chalked it up to “a love of adventure.” A proud man, Garrett was determined to get ahead, willing to try anything that had the promise of financial rewards and respect. One of his friends recalled: “Pat was a working devil. He’d work at anything.” That “anything” eventually would include the job of manhunter for the law.

Like Garrett, Billy the Kid came to New Mexico in a roundabout way. He was born in Missouri or New York — he told the census taker one thing, then when he became notorious claimed the teeming eastern metropolis. His string of aliases and nicknames make his childhood and early youth seem to be part of a large fabrication. It is known that his mother and stepfather, William Antrim, traveled from Indiana to Wichita, Kan., when he was 10. The family moved to Denver two years later for his mother’s health and then on to Silver City, N.M. In Silver City, Billy and his brother spent more time in dance halls and saloons than in school. He had a number of run-ins with the law and briefly was jailed.

Many of the people connected with this story did not deserve their fates. They lived in a harsh land and era, a time of change that still retained some of the cutthroat ways of its past. It was more about survival than about lawman versus outlaw. For others to survive, neither Billy the Kid nor, in the end, Garrett could.

Neither larger-than-life figure would have become legendary had not their paths crossed in the 1880s in New Mexico. The jail escapes, bloody battles, political maneuvers, posse recruitment, pitched confrontations and chases in this history read like an action-packed, shoot-’em-up work of Western fiction. But Gardner authenticates what he has written with pages of notes, resources, a bibliography and a complete index. Adding to the interest, there are a number of tintypes and engravings of lawmen and outlaws who are featured in various anecdotes, along with formal portraits of Billy the Kid and Garrett.

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AN EXCERPT

McSween was expected to arrive in Lincoln that April morning, and when Sheriff Brady stepped out of Wortley’s after finishing his breakfast, he carried not only a warrant in his pocket but also a pair of handcuffs.

Brady walked across the street to the Dolan store, where he was joined by four armed deputies, and about 9:30 a.m., the party started east down Lincoln’s main street. It would be Brady’s last look at the town of Lincoln. As the lawmen passed the Turnstall store, a burst of gunshots split the air. From behind the wall of Turnstall’s corral, at least six Regulators, including Billy Bonney, had let loose with their rifles. Brady and Deputy George Hindman fell at the first fire; the rest quickly scattered for cover behind anything they could find. In the calm that followed the first fusillade, a slow moaning could be heard coming from the street. Brady, obviously a primary target, was covered with blood — he had been pierced by several bullets. Hindman was alive but he was badly wounded, and he kept calling out for water. Saloon keeper Ike Stockton bravely stepped out into the street to help Hindman, but as Stockton lifted up the poor man, another rifle shot ended the deputy’s life.

Billy and Jim French raced out of the corral and over to Brady’s outstretched body. Presumably they were going to take the fallen lawman’s weapons, as well as the despised legal documents he carried. But as soon as the Kid and French were in plain view, Billy Matthews, one of Brady’s deputies who had found a hiding place across the street, opened fire. With bullets kicking up dust around them, Billy and French scampered back to the corral, but not before a bullet seared French in his leg. Soon all the Regulators except French, who was in a great deal of pain, mounted their horses and rode out of town. Brady’s surviving deputies managed a few shots as the killers fled, but they were smart enough not to pursue them.