There are many stories surrounding the life and death of Billy the Kid. Most of the stories are false. The media, no less hungry for a tabloid story in the 19th century as in the 20th, freely interspersed a few grains of truth with Wild West superstition. About the only place where the legends and facts agree is this outlaw's age of death – 21 years, 7 months and 22 days. The larger-than-life stories sadly obscure the real history of this man's short life. It is much more poignant than heroic, more melancholy than malevolent.

Billy the Kid's real name was Henry McCarty. He wasn't born in the Wild West, he was born in a Manhattan tenement slum. To escape poverty, his Dad moved the family to Coffeyville, Kansas and very quickly died. Henry's mother, now a single parent, had the daunting task of making a living in the gritty cruelty of the mid-19th century American West. It was a testimony to her resourcefulness and intelligence (and the genesis of young Henry's undying devotion) that she was able to make a go of it. She supported herself and her son in business – operating hotels, laundries and boarding houses, and even dealing in real estate. By all accounts Henry grew up well-loved and increasingly well-supported. If it hadn't been for the visit of the now-familiar Mycobacterium tuberculosis on the McCarty household, there might never have been a substrate upon which to build this legend.